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The  Gleaners 


By  CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 


The  Gleaners 

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_ 
- 


The    Gleaners 


A  Novelette 


By 
CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 

Author  of  "Everybody's  Lonesome"  "Evo- 
lution of  a  Girl's  Ideal,"  "  The  Lady 
in  Gray"  "  Divided,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


New     York         Chicago         Toronto 

Fleming    H.     Revel/    Company 
London  and  Edinburgh, 


Copyright,   1911,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Rfth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


SRLF 
URL 

513S40Q 


To 
ADA   DWYER 


CONTENrs 

I.  HER  OWN  WAY      ...  9 

II.  THE  COMING  OF  THE  PICTURE  .  18 

III.  THE  WORTH  OF  THE  PICTURE  .  27 

IV.  THE  MEANING  OF  THE  PICTURE  36 

V.  MAKING  AN  APPLICATION       .  44 

VI.  "  MADE  OVER  "  .         .51 

VII.  "  SYMBOLS  "    .        .        .        •  57 

VIII.  "  MOLTA  SlMPATICA  "  .64 

IX.  A  NEIGHBOURLY  CALL     .        .  71 

X.  FINDING  His  HEROINE     .        .  81 
XL  A  GLEANER    ....  93 

XII.  JULIETTA'S  PLAY     ...  99 

XIII.  THE  PLOT  BEGINS   .        .         .  109 

XIV.  LEADING  A  HORSE  TO  WATER  .  118 

XV.  AND  MAKING  HIM  DRINK       .  127 

XVI.  THE  JOY  OF  THE  HARVEST       .  135 

XVII.  WHAT  THE  PLAY  WAS  ABOUT  .  145 

[7] 


The  Gleaners 


HER  OWN  WAY 

THE  autumn  afternoon  sunshine 
was   pouring   its   gold  through 
the  west  windows  of  the  sitting- 
room  before  Julietta  found  her  first  op- 
portunity to  sit  down.     But  she  was  not 
able  to  rest,  even  then ;  her  tired  body 
had  not  relaxed,  and  her  searching  eyes 
were   making  eager  inventory  in  quest 
of  something  left  undone. 

The  rubber-tree !  Some  careless  per- 
son in  passing  through  the  room  had 
brushed  against  the  plant  and  knocked 
off  a  leaf.  This  had  happened  since 
morning,  when  Julietta  tidied  up. 
[9] 


Th e   G leaner s 

As  if  her  tense  muscles  were  wire 
springs,  she  bounced  out  of  her  rocking- 
chair  and  went  to  appraise  the  damage. 

"  One  would  think  that  in  a  room  as 
large  as  this  most  anybody  could  get 
through  without  breaking  things,  if  they 
were  of  a  mind  to  take  a  little  care ! " 

But  that  was  just  it !  Care  they 
wouldrit  take.  Julietta's  mind  framed 
several  accusations,  and  tried  each  in 
turn.  The  weight  of  probability  lay 
heaviest  on  her  father.  He  always 
seemed  to  have  to  struggle  more  in  get- 
ting into  an  overcoat  than  any  other 
man  alive.  And  instead  of  staying  in 
the  hall  to  accomplish  this  clumsy  proc- 
ess, he  almost  invariably  returned  to  the 
sitting-room,  one  arm  in  his  coat  and  the 
other  waving  wildly  about  in  search  of 
its  armhole.  while  he  delivered  some  all- 
but-forgotten  message  or  asked  the  rep- 
[10] 


Her  Own   IF  ay 

etition  of  some  only-half-remembered 
mandate. 

Julietta  could  recall,  now,  when  that 
leaf  must  have  been  sacrificed.  At  the 
dinner  table  she  had  asked  her  father  to 
stop  in  at  the  jeweller's  as  he  came  home, 
and  bring  the  dining-room  clock  that  had 
been  repaired.  And  of  course,  when  that 
struggle  with  his  overcoat  was  at  its  wild- 
est, he  had  come  back,  clear  to  the  din- 
ing-room door,  and  asked  her  what  it  was 
that  she  wanted  him  to  bring. 

Julietta  bent  resentfully  and  picked  up 
the  fallen  leaf.  This  was  the  second  to 
be  sacrificed  within  a  fortnight.  There 
were  only  eleven  leaves  left.  Her  father 
and  brothers  made  fun  of  her  "  sprouting 
walking-stick,"  as  they  called  her  poor, 
sparse  rubber-tree.  It  was  nothing  to 
them  whether  she  had  leaves  on  her  plant 
or  had  not.  What  they  cared  about  was 


The  Gleaners 


their  own  perfect  ease :  their  comfortable 
beds,  their  three  hot  meals  a  day,  their 
clothes  kept  in  perfect  repair,  their  un- 
challenged right  to  fill  the  house  with 
pipe-smoke.  The  rubber-plant  was  one 
of  her  few,  one  of  her  very  few,  indulgen- 
ces. But  they  had  no  respect  for  it.  It 
never  seemed  to  occur  to  them  that  she 
could  desire  any  happiness  in  life  be- 
yond the  happiness  of  ministering  to 
them. 

They  pretended  that  they  didn't  know 
why  she  couldn't  keep  a  servant.  Juli- 
etta  knew  !  They  were  always  averring 
their  willingness  to  pay  a  servant  any 
wages  in  reason.  As  if  wages  could  hire 
any  woman  to  work  as  Julietta  worked ! 
Yet  they  were  not  appreciative.  When 
they  came  home,  night  after  night,  and 
found  her  "  worn  to  a  frazzle,"  they  were 
not  sympathetic.  They  said  :  "  Why  do 

[12] 


Her  O 


wn 


you  do  it?"  And  they  reiterated  their 
belief  that  if  Julietta  could  not  get  for  five 
dollars  a  week  a  servant  to  her  liking, 
then  in  their  opinion  it  would  be  well  to 
pay  ten. 

"And  she'd  eat  and  waste  ten  more. 
A  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  a  hired  girl 
who  would  never  do  one  thing  really 
right  !  I'd  rather  have  the  thousand,  if 
you  please." 

They  tried  to  explain  to  her  that  what 
they  wanted  to  pay  the  thousand  for  was 
her  freedom  from  fret.  But  Julietta  said 
she  should  fret  herself  to  death  if  she  knew 
that  so  much  money  was  being  paid  out 
"  for  next  to  nothing."  So  they  gave  it 
up,  and  let  Julietta  have  what  they  were 
pleased  to  call  her  own  way. 

Her  own  way,  indeed  !  Julietta  won- 
dered if  ever  in  her  life  she  had  had  it. 
Their  mother  died  when  Julietta  was 
[13] 


The  Gleaners 

seventeen ;  died  after  a  long  illness  dur- 
ing which  she  spent  hours  out  of  every 
day  telling  Julietta  what  to  do  for  her 
father  and  the  boys.  It  was  the  talk  of 
the  village  how  faithful  to  her  charge 
Julietta  had  been.  Everybody,  Julietta 
reflected,  seemed  more  conscious  of  her 
devotion  than  the  three  men  who  were  its 
beneficiaries. 

Their  village  was  a  suburb  of  a  big 
city.  It  was  a  very  big  village,  now, 
and  supported  a  good  many  thriving 
businesses.  Many  of  the  residents  were 
wealthy,  and  nearly  all  of  them  were 
well-to-do.  Julietta's  father  was  in  the 
real  estate  business :  he  handled  a  good 
deal  of  neighbouring  property  on  com- 
mission ;  he  bought  and  sold  a  little  of  it 
for  himself,  on  speculation  ;  and  he  loaned 
money  on  improved  property  and  money 
wherewith  to  build.  One  of  his  sons  was 


Her  Own 


in  business  with  him  ;  the  other  was  owner 
of  the  village  drug  store.  The  people 
whose  entire  orbit  was  within  the  village 
formed  social  circles  more  or  less  com- 
pletely apart  from  the  circles  of  those  who 
were  commuters.  This  incensed  Julietta. 
There  was  a  rich  commuter  who  was  in 
the  real  estate  business  in  the  city.  He 
sold  more  expensive  property  than  her 
father  sold,  and  negotiated  larger  loans. 
But  the  difference  was  one  only  of  degree. 
Yet  that  man's  womenfolk  disregarded 
Julietta  in  much  the  same  way  that  they 
disregarded  the  depot  hackman's  daugh- 
ter. They  made  life  difficult  for  her  in 
other  ways,  too.  They  and  others  of 
their  kind  had  worked  havoc  with  the 
cost  of  living.  They  outbid  the  villagers 
in  the  matter  of  eggs  and  chickens  and 
other  food  products  of  the  country  round 
about  ;  they  absorbed  at  more  than  city 
[15] 


The  Gleaners 


wages  all  the  available  "  help"  ;  and  in  a 
hundred  other  ways  they  complicated  the 
problem  of  domestic  management  in  the 
village  without  doing  anything  apprecia- 
ble to  add  to  the  enjoyability  of  life.  Or 
at  least  so  Julietta  thought.  Her  father 
and  brothers  were  satisfied.  For,  if  they 
had  to  pay  more  for  chickens,  they  were 
also  able  to  charge  more  for  shore  prop- 
erty and  for  the  filling  of  prescriptions. 
But  there,  again,  was  the  selfish  "  man  of 
it "  1  They  seemed  to  think  that  if  they 
paid  the  bills  and  gave  Julietta  ten  dollars 
a  week  for  herself,  she  ought  to  be  satis- 
fied. Ten  dollars  a  week  for  her  very 
life-blood  1  And  what  good  to  her,  any- 
way, was  even  the  ten  dollars?  She 
couldn't  go  into  town  to  a  concert  or  a 
matinee  once  in  a  blue  moon,  because 
meal  times  came  so  close  together.  And 
when  you're  never  more  than  an  hour  or 
[16] 


Her  O 


wn 


so  at  a  time  out  of  the  kitchen,  you  don't 
need  many  nice  clothes. 

Julietta's  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of 
her  estate  was  continual.  It  was  practi- 
cally unremitting  in  her  mind,  and  it  was 
seldom  absent  from  her  expression.  Her 
manner  was  one  of  protestation  ;  her 
speech  was  sharp  and  hurried  and  gave 
one  to  understand  that  she  did  not  allow 
herself  leisure  to  loiter,  and  that  she  had 
no  time  to  humour  the  leisurely  propensi- 
ties of  others. 

People  were  careful  how  they  intruded 
upon  Julietta;  so  careful  that  she  was 
often  embittered  to  see  how  little  they 
cared  whether  her  scant  leisure  was  en- 
livened or  not. 


['73 


II 

THE  COMING  OF  THE  PICTURE 

THE  door-bell  rang.  Julietta  laid 
down  the  rubber-plant  leaf  and 
went  to  the  door.  A  man  with 
an  express  package  was  there.  He  said 
the  package  was  for  Julietta ;  and  pre- 
sented his  book  for  her  to  sign. 

When  he  was  gone,  Julietta  carried  the 
box  into  the  house  and  through  to  the 
kitchen.  She  was  so  pleasurably  excited 
that  she  forgot  to  remind  the  expressman 
that  he  should  have  come  to  the  back 
door. 

The  sender's  address  on  the  box  told 
her  that  it  was  from  her  cousin  in  the 
city.  Julietta  wondered  what  had  "  come 
over  "  her  cousin,  all  of  a  sudden.  The 

cousin    was    not  given   to   making  un- 
[18] 


The  Coming  of  the  Picture 

expected  gifts.  The  shape  of  this  box 
indicated  a  picture.  A  chisel  soon  solved 
the  mystery.  It  was  a  picture  1  Julietta 
looked  at  it  resentfully ;  her  disappoint- 
ment was  keen,  but  she  was  suffering 
something  more  than  mere  disappoint- 
ment Her  cousin  had  never  selected 
that  picture  with  a  view  to  giving  Julietta 
pleasure — never  !  Julietta's  lips  tight- 
ened. The  picture  was  a  cast-off,  and 
had  been  shipped  to  her  to  get  rid  of  it. 
Her  first  impulse  was  to  nail  on  again 
the  boards  she  had  pried  off,  and  return 
the  box  with  a  chill  note  saying  she  was 
sure  a  mistake  had  been  made.  Then 
she  caught  sight  of  a  letter.  It  said : 

"  DEAR  JULIETTA  : 

"In  our  club  we  had  an  art  lecture 
last  month.  It  was  about  a  French 
painter,  Millet,  and  was  very  interesting. 
One  of  his  best  pictures  is  called  The 
Gleaners.  He  only  got  $400  for  it.  But 

C'9] 


The  Gleaners 

the  last  time  it  was  sold  it  was  bought 
for  the  French  government  for  $60,000. 
I  don't  quite  see  why  it's  so  great,  but  it 
seems  it  is.  I  bought  this  fine  copy  of  it 
for  our  sitting-room — it's  all  in  browns, 
you  know — but  Geoffrey  won't  have  it 
He  says  it  gives  him  the  backache.  So 
I  thought  I'd  send  it  to  you.  Maybe  you 
won't  like  it  either.  If  you  don't,  just 
keep  it  to  give  for  a  wedding  present.  I 
would  have,  only  so  many  of  my  friends 
have  seen  it  in  my  house. 

"  I  hope  you're  well.  You  must  come 
and  see  us  soon. 

"  With  love  from  Geoffrey  and  me  to  all 
of  you, 

"  Ever  your  affectionate  cousin, 

"  ALVA." 

Julietta  did  not  like  Geoffrey.  He  had 
money,  and  he  was  patronizing.  Un- 
doubtedly he  had  told  Alva  to  ship  the 
offending  picture  out  to  Julietta  ;  he  con- 
sidered that  one  in  her  position  ought  to 
be  grateful  for  any  favour.  Julietta  was 
not  grateful.  Geoffrey  need  not  suppose 

[20] 


The  Coming  of  the  Picture 

that  because  she  worked  so  hard  she  had 
no  spirit.  She  would  show  him  a  thing 
or  two ! 

She  shoved  the  box  with  the  offending 
picture  under  the  kitchen  table,  and  went 
into  the  sitting-room  to  write  a  note. 

But  just  then  the  washerwoman's  chil- 
dren came  for  the  bundle  of  soiled  clothes. 
Their  "  wagon  "  was  the  much-battered 
wicker  baby  carriage  which  had  seen 
hard  service  before  it  descended  to  their 
humble  ownership ;  and  it  had  been  crib 
and  conveyance  for  six  babies  since,  be- 
sides doing  innumerable  duties  in  the 
way  of  bringing  home  free  kindling  and 
expensive  pails  of  coal,  and  carrying  to 
their  destination  piles  of  spick-and-span 
clothes. 

Julietta  left  the  children  in  the  back 
entry  while  she  went  to  get  the  laundry 
bag. 

[21] 


The  Gleaners 


"  You  tell  your  mother,"  she  charged 
the  little  girl  when  giving  her  the  bag, 
"  that  I  find  it  very  expensive,  paying  by 
the  dozen.  It  counts  up  to  more  than 
having  a  woman  by  the  day." 

"  My  ma  can't  go  out  by  the  day  very 
well.  There's  no  one  to  get  dinner  for  us 
or  to  mind  the  baby,"  the  little  girl  replied. 

"  I  don't  want  her  to  come  here — it 
makes  too  much  mess  and  bother.  But 
you  tell  her  that  I've  figured  it  all  out — 
soap  and  starch  and  blueing  and  fire  for 
ironing,  and  all — and  I  say  she's  charg- 
ing too  much ! " 

"  She's  cheaper  than  the  laundry  !  " 
the  little  girl  defended. 

"She  has  to  be,  or  she  wouldn't  get 
any  work,"  Julietta  reminded. 

"  And  her  work  is  better !  She  don't 
put  nothin'  in  the  clo'es  to  rot  'em,"  the 
boy  declared. 

[22] 


The  Coming  of  the   Picture 

Julietta  looked  sternly  at  these  forward 
children. 

"  You  tell  your  mother  I  want  her  to 
come  around  and  see  me  the  first  time  she 
gets  a  chance,"  she  said — and  closed  the 
kitchen  door. 

When  she  went  back  to  her  note,  the 
mood  for  it  was  gone ;  her  irritation  with 
Geoffrey  had  given  place  to  her  irritation 
with  Mrs.  Mears. 

She  was  sorry  about  the  note  ;  sundry 
scathing  phrases  she  had  been  all  ready 
to  set  down  when  those  Mears  children 
came  had  quite  escaped  her. 

In  the  hope  of  remembering  what  they 
were,  she  went  back  to  the  kitchen, 
dragged  the  box  out  from  under  the 
table,  and  looked  again  at  the  offending 
picture,  read  again  the  offensive  letter. 

The  picture  was  beautifully  framed  in  a 
brown  wood  the  exact  tone  of  the  photo- 
[23] 


The  Gleaners 


graph  itself.  The  frame  was  severely 
plain,  but  the  grain  of  the  walnut  was 
exquisite,  and  its  satin  finish  gave  it 
what  Julietta  called  "  an  air."  She  had 
often  admired  the  Braun  Clement  prints 
she  saw  in  picture  shop  windows  and 
on  the  walls  of  some  of  her  most  tasteful 
friends  ;  she  knew  that  one  of  these  fine 
French  photographs  of  a  celebrated  pic- 
ture was  considered  more  elegant  than  a 
mediocre  "  original "  in  a  gilt  frame  ;  she 
had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  think  she 
would  buy  one,  some  day — not  for  this 
home  which  she  could  never  hope  to  have 
to  her  liking  ;  but  if  ever  she  had  the  joy 
of  furnishing  one  to  her  own  taste.  (The 
possible  man  who  might  live  in  Julietta's 
house  was  an  absolutely  tractable  man 
who  would  intrude  no  dreams  of  his  own 
long-cherishing  into  her  scheme  of  things. 
He  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  three 

[24] 


The  Coming  of  the  Picture 

men  Juliette,  knew  best  of  all ;  nothing  in 
common  with  a  man  like  Geoffrey  who 
could  venture  to  order  a  picture  out  of 
his  house  because  he  said  it  made  his  back 
ache.) 

Julietta  looked  admiringly  at  that 
French  walnut  frame.  In  her  mind's  eye 
she  could  see  it  with  the  bent  gleaners  re- 
moved and  a  "  Girl  With  the  Muff "  in 
their  place. 

She  decided  not  to  return  the  picture. 
But  in  order  to  keep  it  and  her  self- 
respect,  she  must  think  up  something  to 
say  to  Alva  which  would  make  Alva  feel 
like  a  fool  for  having  given  it  away. 
This  idea  interested  Julietta  more  than 
the  other  had  done.  She  took  the  pic- 
ture out  of  its  packing,  and  carried  it  into 
the  sitting-room. 

Sixty  thousand  dollars !  Julietta  wished 
she  knew  something  about  why  so  vast  a 
[25] 


The  Gleaners 

sum  should  have  been  paid  for  this  unat- 
tractive picture  of  three  peasant  women  in 
a  stubbly  field.  Such  coarse,  clod-like 
women,  too  I  She  studied  them  intently, 
but  unavailingly  except  that  they  made 
the  muscles  of  her  back  ache,  too. 

Julietta  had  always  heard  the  French 
characterized  as  light,  pleasure-loving, 
worshipful  of  beauty.  Why  was  this  pic- 
ture so  precious  to  them  ? 


[26] 


Ill 

THE  WORTH  OF  THE  PICTURE 

FATHER    and    Frank    and    Steve 
viewed  the  picture  with  interest, 
in  the  light  of  Alva's  letter,  but 
without  being  able  to  hazard  even  a  good 
guess  as  to  why  it  was  so   highly  re- 
garded. 

"  You  can't  tell  anything  from  a  photo- 
graph," Frank  reminded.  "  In  the  origi- 
nal the  colours  may  be  gorgeous — or 
something  like  that." 

Father  was  concerned  with  the  rise  in 
value. 

"From  four  hundred  dollars  to  sixty 
thousand  is  some  rise,"  he  said.  "  I 
wonder  how  long  it  took  to  make  the 
jump." 

[27] 


The  Gleaners 

Julietta  knew,  vaguely,  that  Millet  was 
not  a  great  while  dead  ;  she  thought  the 
jump  in  value  must  have  been  within  a 
few  years. 

"  I've  seen  it  happen,  over  and  over 
again,"  father  went  on ;  "a  man  gets 
a-hold  of  a  piece  of  property  that  ought 
by  all  the  signs  to  be  a  good  investment. 
And  he  holds  it  for  years,  paying  taxes, 
and  sells  it  for  about  what  it  cost  him. 
Two  years  later,  or  so,  the  fellow  that 
bought  it  trebles  his  money  I " 

Steve  went  back  to  his  drug  store  as 
soon  as  he  had  eaten  his  supper ;  but  the 
other  three  sat  around  and  looked  at  the 
picture,  and  studied  it  as  if  it  were  some 
peculiarly  fascinating  puzzle.  And  talk 
of  one  thing  led  to  talk  of  another  in  a 
more  animated  discussion  than  had  en- 
livened this  household  for  many  months 

before.      It  was  ten  o'clock,  and  Steve 
[28] 


The  Worth  of  the  Picture 

was  back  again,  before  anybody  realized 
that  the  evening  had  flown. 

Steve's  store  was  the  grand  clearing- 
house for  village  information.  Everybody 
in  the  suburb  went  there  with  more  or  less 
frequency.  A  notice  posted  in  the  drug 
store  was  the  favourite  method  of  com- 
munication with  the  public.  People  might 
or  might  not  read  the  Lost  and  Found  or 
the  Help  Wanted  or  the  House  to  Rent 
columns  of  the  city  dailies,  and  they  might 
but  probably  would  not  read  the  Shore 
Suburban  News ;  but  they  were  sure  to 
read  a  notice  that  was  posted  in  the  drug 
store. 

Steve  had,  of  course,  a  speaking  ac- 
quaintance with  every  one  in  the  village ; 
and  he  had  a  fund  of  knowledge  about 
most  every  one  far  beyond  what  it  would 
have  been  comfortable  for  them  to  realize. 
He  knew  a  great  many  things  about  peo- 
[29] 


The  Gleaners 

pie  in  the  village,  but  last  of  all  kinds  of 
information  to  percolate  to  the  drug  store 
was  any  information  about  the  villagers' 
artistic  tastes.  So  Steve  wrote  a  notice : 

"  WANTED  TO  KNOW — Something  about 
the  French  artist  Millet,  and  especially 
about  his  picture  called  «  The  Glean- 
ers' Any  one  who  happens  to  know 
will  confer  a  favour  by  speaking  to  the 
Proprietor." 

From  a  little  after  seven,  when  the 
notice  was  posted  up  near  the  cigar  case 
and  the  candy  counter  in  the  front  of  the 
store,  till  past  nine,  it  was  read  many 
times,  but  without  other  result  than  that 
some  who  felt  on  pretty  free  terms  with 
"  the  Proprietor  "  ventured  to  "  kid  "  him 
about  his  new  interest  in  art. 

"Got  a  girl,  Steve?"  they  teased. 
"  Does  she  make  you  answer  questions 
about  What's-his-name  ?  " 

Steve  reiterated  that  he  was  seeking 
[30] 


The  Worth  of  the  Picture 

the  information  for  some  one  else.  Some 
of  the  village  wags  believed  him,  and 
some  didn't. 

About  nine-thirty  an  interurban  trolley 
car  stopped  at  the  drug  store  door  (one  of 
the  offices  of  the  drug  store  was  as  a  trol- 
ley waiting-room)  and  a  man  got  off.  He 
stepped  to  the  cigar  case  to  make  a  pur- 
chase, and  the  notice  caught  his  eye. 

Steve  had  waited  on  him.  He  knew  as 
little  about  this  man  as  about  anybody  in 
the  village.  Practically  the  sum  of  his 
knowledge  was  that  the  gentleman's  name 
was  Sheppard  ;  that  he  had  come  to  the 
suburb,  about  two  months  ago,  from  no- 
body-knew-where  ;  and  that  he  was  living 
in  the  little  stone  house  of  the  Hansons' 
out  beyond  the  ravine.  The  Hansons 
had  gone  abroad  in  the  spring;  their 
house  was  rented  for  the  summer  by  a 
Southern  family,  and  in  September,  im- 
[31] 


The  Gleaners 

mediately  after  the  Southerners  left,  this 
Mr.  Sheppard  came.  He  had  a  Japanese 
servant  who  was  housekeeper  and  valet, 
but  who  fraternized  not  at  all  with  the 
other  servants  of  the  village  nor  with  the 
tradespeople  ;  so  not  much  was  known  of 
Mr.  Sheppard  who  escaped  being  con- 
sidered "  mysterious "  only  because  his 
manner  was  so  frank  and  so  apparently 
free  that  hardly  any  one  realized  how  lit- 
tle about  himself  he  ever  revealed. 

"  Interested  in  art,  Mr.  Grier?"  he  asked, 
when  he  had  finished  reading  the  notice. 

Steve  smiled.  "I  guess  you'd  hardly 
call  it  that,"  he  said;  "but  I'd  like  to 
know  a  little  about  that  particular  picture 
and  why  it  cost  sixty  thousand  dollars." 

"Did  it?"  Mr.  Sheppard  asked.  "I 
didn't  know.  I've  seen  it" 

"  The  real  one  ?  " 

"Yes;  in  the  Louvre." 
[32] 


The  W^orth  of  the  Picture 

"  Is  it  very  wonderful?" 

"  It  is — why,  to  tell  you  the  truth  I 
don't  know  much  more  about  it  than  you 
do,  except  that  I  can  remember  just  how 
it  looks.  The  yellow  stubble,  the  bent 
figures,  the  sunburnt  hands  and  faces  of 
the  women,  the  blistering  heat  of  the  sun 
which  the  picture  makes  one  feel  as  if  he 
were  out  under  it,  all  come  back  to  me 
very  vividly,  now  that  you  remind  me  of 
the  painting.  But  I  don't  believe  I  know 
much  more  about  it  than  that  it  is  consid- 
ered a  great  canvas.  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll 
do,  though !  Mr.  Hanson's  library  is  a 
very  good  one,  I'm  finding.  He  is  an  ap- 
preciator  of  art.  I'll  look  the  books  over, 
when  I  go  home  ;  and  if  there's  anything 
about  Millet  I'll  bring  it  down  to  you  in 
the  morning." 

"I   wonder  who  he  is  and   what  he 
[33] 


The  Gleaners 


does,"   Frank  said,  when  Steve  had  re- 
counted his  talk  with  Mr.  Sheppard. 

Steve  admitted  his  inability  to  guess. 
"  He  seems  to  be  an  awfully  nice,  human 
sort  of  a  chap — nothing  queer  or  freakish 
about  him.  I  guess  it's  no  sign  that  be- 
cause a  man  doesn't  tell  all  his  business 
to  a  bunch  of  gossips  like  there  are  in  this 
village  there's  anything  the  matter  with 
him.  Looks  to  me  like  a  good  proof  of 
his  intelligence." 

Julietta  was  beginning  to  be  quite  ex- 
cited. She  had  forgotten  all  about  the 
rubber-plant  when  she  lay  down  to  sleep 
that  night,  and  all  about  the  excessive 
charges  of  Mrs.  Mears.  She  could  hardly 
wait  for  the  morrow  and  what  develop- 
ments it  might  bring. 

When  Steve  came  home  for  dinner  the 
next  day  he  brought  a  book,  and  a  mes- 
sage. 

[34] 


The  Worth  of  the  Picture 

"  Mr.  Sheppard  found  a  book  that  tells 
about  the  picture,"  he  announced,  handing 
the  book  to  Julietta ;  "  and  he  said  he  had 
sat  up  nearly  all  night  reading  it.  I  told 
him  how  we  came  to  be  so  interested. 
And  he  said  that  he  certainly  was  obliged 
to  Alva  for  sending  us  the  picture." 

"  He  was  obliged  ?  "  echoed  Julietta. 
"  I  wonder  why ! " 

"  Maybe  he'll  tell  you  when  you  take 
back  the  book,"  Steve  ventured. 


[35] 


IV 

THE  MEANING  OF  THE  PICTURE 

AS  soon  as  she  had  hurried  the 
dinner  dishes  out  of  the  way, 
Julietta  sat  down  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  that  book  which  the 
mysterious  Mr.  Sheppard  had  stayed 
awake  nearly  all  night  to  read.  It  was 
the  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Jean  Francois 
Millet,"  and  the  narrative  gripped  her 
almost  on  the  first  page.  Withdrawn 
into  a  world  far  apart  from  her  own,  she 
was  as  if  veritably  in  Gruchy  on  the  rug- 
ged Norman  coast ;  in  the  little  gray  stone 
house  with  its  thatched  roof,  where  the 
peasant-painter  was  born  and  where  his 
boyhood  was  lived ;  in  the  remarkable 
family  group  of  that  simple,  God-fearing 
home  where  the  will  of  the  Almighty  was 
[36] 


The  Meaning  of  the  Picture 

the  hourly  thought  of  every  one,  and  the 
routine  of  life  was  so  close  to  that  of 
patriarchal  days  in  Palestine  that  the 
Bible  seemed  like  a  personal  revelation  to 
them. 

She  toiled  in  the  fields  with  the  boy 
Francois  while  the  seasons  unfolded  their 
wonders  to  him  and  he  felt  himself,  as  he 
plowed  and  sowed  and  reaped,  one  with 
those  Bible  men  who  were  his  chief 
companions-invisible.  She  followed  him 
through  the  struggles  and  starvation  of 
his  student  life,  up  to  that  time  in  his 
thirty-fourth  year  when  he  was  beginning 
to  be  known  for  the  brilliant  colouring 
and  marvellous  flesh-tints  of  his  pictures, 
and  the  French  government  gave  him  an 
order  for  a  painting.  The  subject  he 
chose  was  "  Hagar  and  Ishmael  in  the 
Desert,"  and  Millet  lavished  all  his  skill 
on  Hagar's  form,  intending  it  to  be  a 
[37] 


The    Gleaners 


striking  study  of  the  nude.  But  one 
evening  when  the  picture  was  almost 
finished,  he  happened  to  overhear  himself 
discussed  by  two  youths  as  "a  man 
named  Millet  who  never  paints  anything 
but  naked  women."  Then  Millet  was 
overcome  with  shame  of  himself  and  of 
his  departure  from  the  beautiful  old  ideals 
of  his  boyhood.  He  went  home  and 
said  to  his  devoted  young  wife  :  "  If  you 
consent,  I  will  paint  no  more  of  those 
pictures.  Life  will  be  harder  than  ever, 
and  you  will  suffer ;  but  I  shall  be  free, 
and  able  to  do  what  I  have  long  dreamt 
of."  To  which  the  brave  girl — she  was 
only  twenty-two  and  had  two  babies — 
replied:  "  I  am  ready.  Do  as  you  will." 
From  that  moment  Millet's  back  was 
turned  forever  on  success  as  the  world  of- 
fered it  to  him  if  he  would  gratify  its 
tastes.  He  took  his  little  family  to 
[38] 


The  Meaning  of  the  Picture 

Barbizon  on  the  edge  of  the  forest  of 
Fontainebleau,  on  one  hand,  and  of  the 
great  plain  of  La  Biere  on  the  other. 
There  life  was  indeed  hard,  and  sorrows 
were  many  ;  but  there  Millet  was  free  to 
do  what  he  had  "  long  dreamt  of "  ;  and 
there,  far  exceeding  his  fondest  dreams, 
he  wrought  not  only  immortal  beauty  but 
a  new  era  in  art. 

Finally,  Julietta  came  to  The  Gleaners ; 
to  the  letter  to  Rosseau  in  which  Millet 
first  mentioned  it,  saying : 

"  I  am  working  like  a  slave  to  get  my 
picture  of  The  Gleaners  done  in  time.  I 
really  do  not  know  what  will  be  the  result 
of  all  the  trouble  that  I  have  taken. 
There  are  days  when  I  feel  as  if  this  un- 
happy picture  had  no  meaning.  If  only  it 
does  not  turn  out  too  disgraceful !  .  .  . 
Headaches,  big  and  little,  have  attacked 
me  during  the  last  month  with  such  vio- 
lence that  I  have  scarcely  been  able  to 
work  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at  a  time." 

[39] 


The  Gleaners 

She  read  with  what  scoffing  and  abuse 
the  noble  picture  was  received  ;  and  how 
Millet  had  replied  to  it :  "  They  may  do 
their  worst !  I  stand  firm.  They  may 
call  me  a  painter  of  ugliness,  a  detractor 
of  my  race,  but  let  no  one  think  they  can 
force  me  to  beautify  peasant-types.  I 
would  rather  say  nothing  than  express 
myself  feebly." 

Thanks  to  the  outcry  of  the  visionless, 
he  got  only  two  thousand  francs  for  his 
picture.  Julietta  wondered  why  the  pic- 
ture was  considered  so  "  dangerous  "  that 
many  people  had  protested  against  its 
exhibition  and  declared  that  Millet  was 
trying  to  stir  up  another  Revolution. 

She  had  to  admit  that  she  was  not  very 
sure  just  what  "  gleaners  "  really  were. 
She  had  a  hazy  idea,  of  course,  but  it  was 
very  hazy.  The  only  definite  things  with 
which  she  could  connect  any  of  her  vague 
[40] 


The  Meaning  of  the  Picture 

impressions  about  gleaners  were  sermons 
and  Sunday-school  lessons  dealing  with 
Ruth.  Julietta  thought  she  would  look  it 
up. 

She  got  the  Bible  and  reread  the  story 
of  Naomi  and  her  daughter-in-law.  Ju- 
lietta thought  she  knew  it  by  heart,  she 
had  heard  it  so  often  reiterated ;  but 
this  was  the  first  time  she  had  ever  read 
it  searchingly.  Ruth  was  a  gleaner ;  she 
left  the  land  of  her  birth  and  went  to 
Judea  where,  according  to  a  provision  of 
the  Lord,  a  woman  might  earn  her  bread 
in  the  sweat  of  her  brow  and  need  not,  as 
in  Moab,  beg  the  bitter  bread  of  depend- 
ence. For  in  Israel  the  husbandman 
was  commanded : 

"  When  thou  cuttest  down  thine  harvest 
in  thy  field,  and  hast  forgot  a  sheaf  in  the 
field,  thou  shalt  not  go  again  to  fetch  it : 
it  shall  be  for  the  stranger,  for  the  father- 


The  Gleaners 


less,  and  for  the  widow :  that  the  Lord 
thy  God  may  bless  thee  in  all  the  work  of 
thine  hands.  .  .  .  And  thou  shaJt 
remember  that  thou  wast  a  bondman  in 
the  land  of  Egypt :  therefore  I  command 
thee  to  do  this  thing." 

Julietta  read  it  over  several  times  ;  then 
she  looked  intently  at  the  picture  which 
was  beginning  to  mean  so  much  to  her. 
She  got  up  and  went  and  stood  close  to 
it  that  she  might  satisfy  herself  the  better 
about  some  details.  Her  glance  roved 
from  the  farmer's  great  stacks,  in  the 
background,  to  the  few  wisps  each  of  the 
three  gleaning  women  held  in  her  hand  ; 
she  compared  him,  on  horseback,  like  a 
general  directing  the  movements  of  his 
men,  with  the  bent  women  in  the  fore- 
ground, their  eyes  searching  among  the 
stubble  for  grains  of  wheat,  their  hands 
outstretched  in  eagerness  to  seize  the 
[42] 


The  Meaning  of  the  Picture 

tiniest  particle  that  might  be  transmitted 
into  sustenance.  Julietta  had  learned 
that  the  painter  believed  in  the  sweetness 
of  that  bread  only  which  has  been  earned 
in  toil ;  she  knew  this  picture  could  not 
be,  as  some  had  ignorantly  interpreted  it, 
a  protest  against  the  grim  necessity  of 
labour.  What  then  ?  A  plea  for  fields 
not  too  clean-picked  ? 


[43] 


V 

MAKING  AN  APPLICATION 

THERE  was  a  knock  at  the  back 
door.     Resentful  of  the  interrup- 
tion, Julietta  went  to  the  door. 
Mrs.  Mears  had  herself  brought  back  the 
clean  clothes. 

"  The  children  told  me  you  wanted  to 
see  me,  Miss  Grier,"  the  woman  began. 
"  I'm  awful  sorry  if  there's  any  dissatis- 
faction. I'd  hate  to  lose  your  washing." 
There  was  something  about  Mrs.  Mears 
that  reminded  Julietta  of  the  women  in 
the  picture  ;  her  toil-bent  figure  had  not 
the  sturdiness  of  theirs,  but  she  carried 
with  her  (when  you  came  to  notice  such 
things)  the  same  air  of  eager  searching- 
ness — as  if  she,  like  they,  could  not  afford 
to  let  the  tiniest  particle  of  sustenance 
[44] 


Making   An  Application 

escape  her  gleaning.  Also,  Julietta  sud- 
denly found  herself  feeling  like  the  farmer 
on  horseback,  with  his  great  stacks  about 
him. 

"Come  in,"  she  urged;  "and  let  us 
talk  about  it." 

Mrs.  Mears  lifted  the  clean  clothes  out 
of  the  battered  baby-buggy,  and  closed 
the  kitchen  door  behind  her.  Julietta  un- 
pinned the  white  wrapping  (part  of  an 
old  sheet  it  was)  and  gave  an  admiring 
look  at  Mrs.  Mears'  handiwork. 

"  How  beautifully  you  do  them ! "  she 
exclaimed. 

Mrs.  Mears  looked  the  astonishment 
she  felt.  She  had  expected  criticism  as 
a  prelude  to  bargaining  or  dismissal. 

"I  try  very  hard,"  she  answered, 
simply.  "It  means  so  much  to  me  to 
have  my  customers  satisfied." 

"Come  into  the  sitting-room,"  said 
[45] 


The  Gleaners 

Julietta ;  "there   is  an   open   fire  there, 
and  easier  chairs." 

Mrs.  Mears  was  not  able  to  conceal  the 
wonder  she  felt ;  it  declared  itself  in  her 
face ;  but  she  followed  Julietta,  and  ac- 
cepted the  comfortable  chair  Julietta  indi- 
cated. 

"  I  mustn't  stop,"  she  murmured. 
"  I've  to  get  back  and  see  about  the 
children's  supper." 

"  Are  none  of  them  old  enough  to  help 
you  ?  " 

"  Well,  Elsie  is ;  but  of  course  she 
works.  She's  sixteen  ;  she  works  by  a 
factory." 

"A  factory?" 

"  Yes'm — Higgins' — at  Waumbeck." 

"  Has  he  a  factory  there  now  ?  " 

"Yes'm." 

"  And  does  your  little  girl  go  back  and 
forth  every  day  ?  " 

[46] 


Making   An    Application 

"  Yes'm ;  it's  a  ten-cent  fare  on  the 
interurban.  But  that's  a  lot  cheaper  than 
goin'  into  the  city  to  work,  or  stay  in'  in 
there  to  board.  And  of  course,  if  I  was 
to  move  into  town,  rents  'd  be  higher  and 
I  maybe  couldn't  find  no  place  where  I 
could  dry  clothes.  And  over  to  Waum- 
beck  there  ain't  nobody  that  gives  their 
washin'  out  to  be  done.  I've  figured  it 
all  out,  and  I  don't  see  no  other  way." 

"  What  does  Elsie  get  ?  " 

"  Three  a  week." 

"  Three  dollars !  And  it  costs  her  a 
dollar  and  twenty  cents  for  car  fare  !  " 

"  I  know !  But  a  dollar  an'  eighty 
cents  helps  me  out  more  than  you'd  be- 
lieve. That's  more  than  I  can  earn  in  a 
couple  o'  days,  almost — when  I  count  out 
what  it  costs  me  for  soap  an'  fire,  an' 
starch,  an'  bluein'.  I  could  earn  more  if 
I  went  out  by  the  day.  But  what  does 
[47] 


The  Gleaners 


that  mean?  It  means  leavin'  my  house 
go  at  sixes  and  sevens ;  an'  my  children 
run  wild,  without  proper  food  or  care. 
It'd  mean  that  Elsie'd  have  to  come  home 
nights,  from  that  long  day  at  the  fact'ry, 
and  find  the  house  all  every-which-way, 
an'  no  supper  cooked,  what  with  me  get- 
tin'  home  as  late  as  her.  An'  I  don't 
want  her  to  get  discouraged,  Miss  Grier. 
It's  awful  important  not  to  leave  a  young 
girl  like  her  get  discouraged  with  tryin' 
to  do  right." 

Julietta  was  glad  that  there  was  only 
firelight  in  the  room,  and  that  the  dusk 
had  deepened  almost  to  dark ;  for  her 
eyes  were  brimming,  and  her  mouth  was 
tremulous. 

"  Mrs.  Mears,"  she  began,  quite  tim- 
idly, "I've  been  thinking — since  I  sent 
that  message  to  you  yesterday.  I'm 
sorry  I  troubled  you  to  come  here  after 
[48] 


Making   An   Application 

your  hard  day's  work  ;  but  for  my  sake, 
I'm  glad  you  came.  I  know  that  you  do 
better  work  than  the  laundry.  I've  al- 
ways known  it !  Why,  only  last  week, 
a  friend  of  mine  sent  her  best  new  hand- 
embroidered  shirt-waist  to  the  laundry, 
and  when  it  came  home  it  literally 
dropped  to  pieces  from  the  stuff  they 
had  used  to  bleach  it.  You  ought  to  get 
more  than  the  laundry  gets.  But  for  the 
present,  at  least,  I  hope  you'll  let  me  pay 
you  just  as  much." 

Mrs.  Mears  received  this  announce- 
ment with  a  burst  of  grateful  tears. 

"  If  you  could  know,  Miss  Grier,  what 
this  means  to  me  !  "  she  cried. 

"  I  see,"  commented  Julietta's  father, 
looking  up  from  his  newspaper  at  the 
supper  table  that  evening,  "that  our 
neighbour,  Grant  Higgins,  is  giving  a 

[49] 


The  Gleaners 


hundred  thousand  dollars  for  a  new 
Erring  Women's  Refuge." 

"  He  can  afford  to,  without  missing  it," 
declared  Frank. 

Julietta's  eyes  flashed  fire.  "  His  half- 
paid  employees  are  giving  it ! "  she  cried. 
"  And  they  do  miss  it !  " 

Father  and  the  boys  looked  in  astonish- 
ment at  Julietta.  They  had  never  before 
known  her  so  vehement  about  anything 
except  her  own  grievances. 


[50] 


VI 

"MADE  OVER" 

STEVE  carried  the  Millet  book  back 
to  his  store  and  waited  for  Mr. 
Sheppard  to  come  in,  homeward 
bound.  Julietta  thought  Steve  should 
have  taken  the  book  to  Mr.  Sheppard's 
house.  But  Steve  was  afraid  that  would 
look  as  if  he  were  trying  to  force  ac- 
quaintance. He  might  have  sent  it  by 
his  errand  boy  ;  but  he  didn't. 

The  truth  was,  Steve  was  hoping  for  a 
chance  to  talk  with  Mr.  Sheppard ;  to  tell 
him  how  much  Julietta  had  enjoyed  the 
book ;  and  perhaps  to  hear  a  little  more 
of  why  Mr.  Sheppard  had  been  so  inter- 
ested in  it. 

Steve  had  not  read  the  book :  he  had 


The   Gleaners 

little  time  for  reading  and  it  was  all  he 
could  do  to  keep  up  with  the  daily  pa- 
pers, the  Druggist's  News,  and  a  few 
magazines.  He  was  far  from  being  sure 
that  he  understood  what  Julietta  tried  to 
tell  about  the  book.  But  there  was  one 
thing  that  was  unmistakable !  Julietta 
had  got  something  out  of  the  picture  or 
the  book,  or  both,  that  was  clarifying  life 
at  home  in  much  the  same  magic  way 
that  Steve  sometimes  clarified  turgid  and 
muddy  liquids  by  dropping  in  a  chemical 
which  caused  precipitation. 

Mr.  Sheppard  seemed  much  interested 
when  Steve  told  him  how  grateful  for  the 
loan  of  the  book  his  sister  was. 

"  Whatever  it  was  that  she  wanted  to 
find  out  about  that  picture,  she  seems  to 
have  got  it,  all  right,"  Steve  said. 

"  I'm  glad  to  hear  it,"  Mr.  Sheppard 
declared,  "  If  it  helped  her  as  much  as 
[52] 


"Made  Over 


it  has  helped  me,  it  is  a  wonderful  book 
for  sure.  Does  your  sister  paint  ?  " 

The  question  almost  startled  Steve, 
who,  naturally,  thought  first  of  cosmetics. 

"  No  ;  oh,  no  I "  he  said ;  "  she  doesn't 
do  anything  like  that." 

Mr.  Sheppard  laughed.  "  You  seem 
quite  shocked  at  the  idea,"  he  observed. 
"But  so  many  young  ladies  nowadays 
paint,  or  stamp  leather,  or  hammer  brass, 
or — or — do  something,  you  know.  It 
seems  quite  the  thing." 

"  Julietta  keeps  house,"  Steve  explained. 
"  She  has  kept  house  since  she  was  seven- 
teen. I  guess  she  never  had  time  to  learn 
much  about  art." 

On  hearing  this,  Mr.  Sheppard  felt 
more  interested  than  before.  He  had 
been  seeing  the  druggist's  young  lady 
sister  in  his  mind's  eye ;  imagining  her 
as  one  of  the  village  types  he  had  met 
[53] 


The  Gleaners 


on  the  stage  oftener  than  anywhere  else. 
He  had  been  amusedly  sure  that  she 
painted  china  or  lamp-shades ;  that  she 
belonged  to  a  whist  club  ;  was  her  broth- 
er's best  patron  of  soda-water ;  and  was 
probably  "  boning  "  on  Millet  to  write  a 
paper  for  the  Mary  E.  Wilkins'  Literary 
Society. 

Steve's  manner,  much  more  than  what 
he  said,  indicated  a  far  different  type. 
Mr.  Sheppard  pursued  his  inquiry. 

"She  must  have  more  artistic  taste 
than  you  think,"  he  suggested,  "  if  she  is 
interested  in  Millet." 

"  I  don't  know  that  she  ever  heard 
of  Millet  till  this  week,"  Steve  replied, 
bluntly.  "I  know  /  didn't.  But  this 
picture  came — it  was  a  hand-down  from 
my  cousin,  whose  husband  said  it  made 
his  back  ache — and  Julietta  wanted  to 
find  out  why  it  was  considered  so  won- 
[54] 


"Made   Over 


derful.  I  don't  believe  I  understand  yet. 
But  I  know  one  thing !  Whatever  it 
was  that  Julietta  found  out,  it  has  about 
made  her  over." 

"  Made  her  over  ?  " 

"Yes!  She  was  pretty  tired  of  her 
job — keeping  house  for  my  father  and  my 

brother  and  me — and  she  was Well, 

she  didn't  have  enough  to  interest  her,  I 
guess,  and  she  was  kind  of — hard  to 
live  with.  Whatever  it  was  that  she  got 
out  of  that  book,  she's  been  quite  differ- 
ent" 

"  Isn't  that  interesting ! "  Mr.  Sheppard 
exclaimed.  "  I  wonder  what  it  was." 

"  Something  about  gleaners.  I  haven't 
heard  a  great  deal.  I'm  at  home  so  little. 
She'd  be  glad  to  tell  you,  I'm  sure,  if  you 
would  care  to  know." 

"  I  should,  indeed !  What  shall  I  do 
about  it?" 

[55] 


The  Gleaners 

Steve  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was 
two-thirty. 

"  This  is  a  slack  time,"  he  said.  "  I'll 
walk  up  home  with  you,  if  you  want  to 
go,  and  introduce  you  to  my  sister." 

"  Would  she  like  that  better  than  if  I 
introduced  myself  ?  " 

11  Why,  I  don't  know.  I'll  tell  you  1 
I'll  'phone  her  that  you're  coming ;  that'll 
do  just  as  well." 


[56] 


VII 

"  SYMBOLS  " 

THE  autumn  afternoon  was  glori- 
ous.    Frost  had  turned  the  trees 
to  scarlet  and  gold  and  bronze, 
but  had  not  yet  noticeably  stripped  them, 
although  the  ground  was  well  carpeted 
with   fallen    leaves.     The   sunshine   was 
warm,  but    the   air  had   a  tingle   in  it 
which  made   pulses   leap   as  no  merely 
soft  warmth  can  ever  do. 

The  village  was  famed  for  its  hard 
maples.  A  magnificent  avenue  of  them 
completely  overarched  the  broad  street 
on  which  the  Griers  lived,  and  they  were 
aflame  with  splendour  as  Sheppard 
walked  along  beneath  their  arch. 

Julietta  opened  the  door  for  him  and 
asked  him  in.     He  was  conscious  of  a 
[57] 


The  Gleaners 


sense  of  regret  the  moment  the  front 
door  was  closed  and  he  got  a  whiff  of 
the  stove-heated  air  of  the  sitting-room. 

"  I'll  tell  you,"  he  began  when  the  first 
formalities  were  over  with ;  "  I  want  to 
talk  with  you.  I — I'd  be  so  glad  if  you 
would  tell  me  some  things  about  the 
book  and  what  you  got  out  of  it.  But — 
what  have  you  got  to  do  ?  Would  it  be 
impossible  for  you  to  come  out  and  take 
a  walk?  I'm  not  very  good  at — this 
sort  of  thing." 

He  smiled,  and  Julietta  understood. 
They  were  sitting  stiffly  facing  each 
other,  not  very  different  from  children  in 
the  first  stage  of  a  party. 

"  And  '  anyway  besides,'  "  he  went  on, 
"  the  afternoon  is  much  too  wonderful  to 
miss." 

Julietta  was  captivated  by  Mr.  Shep- 
pard's  manner.  It  was  shy,  in  a  way ; 
[58] 


"Symbols" 

but  it  wasn't  the  kind  of  shyness  that 
made  another  person  ill  at  ease.  And 
there  was  an  unmistakable  heartiness 
about  it  that  seemed  waiting  only  for  a 
bit  of  friendly  encouragement  to  bring  it 
to  full  expression. 

"I'd  love  to  go,"  she  said;  and  went 
at  once  to  get  ready. 

While  she  was  gone  he  stood  studying 
the  picture,  his  memory  painting  it  in 
the  sun-drenched  colours  of  the  original. 

Julietta  smiled  appreciatively  when  she 
came  back  and  saw  his  intent  scrutiny. 

"  When  you've  learned  to  read  its 
meaning  it  is  wonderful,  isn't  it?"  she 
said. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  answered,  "  that 
I've  learned  to  read  its  meaning.  But 
the  fact  that  so  many  people  have 
learned  is  what  has  meant  so  much  to 
me!" 

[59] 


The  Gleaners 


"Yes?"  she  murmured,  uncompre- 
hendingly. 

"  Sounds  mysterious-like,  doesn't  it  ?  " 
he  went  on.  "  Perhaps  I'd  better  try  to 
explain.  You  see,  the  part  that  made 
such  a  hit  with  me  was  the  part  that 
told  how  discouraged  Millet  was  when 
he  was  painting  this  picture.  Remem- 
ber ?  He  said  something  about  '  if  only 
it  does  not  turn  out  too  disgraceful  1 ' 
Think  of  that !  He  could  feel  that  way 
about  a  canvas  which  was  destined  to  be 
of  such  great  worth  to  the  world.  If  he 
could  get  that  discouraged  about  one  of 
the  very  greatest  pictures  of  modern 
times,  I  figured  that  it  isn't  any  wonder 
if  a  little  fellow  like  me  gets  the  blue 
devils  about  his  job." 

They  were  out  in  the  maple-arched 
street  now,  and  freedom  of  tongue 

seemed  to  come  to  Sheppard  with  the 
[60] 


"Symbols 


freer  movements  of  his  limbs.  He  had, 
too,  made  a  pleasant  discovery  about 
Julietta. 

"You  walk  with  a  good  rhythm,"  he 
declared. 

"Do  I  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I  didn't  know 
it." 

"  Look  I "  he  illustrated  comically,  ad- 
justing his  speech  to  different  lengths 
of  steps  differently  accented.  Julietta 
laughed  delightedly.  "  That's  the  rea- 
son so  many  people  don't  like  to  walk," 
he  went  on.  "  They  don't  know  how. 
And  they  don't  know  what  they  miss. 
If  there's  something  I  can't  think  out 
sitting  down,  I  get  on  my  legs  and  start 
them  in  a  good,  swinging  rhythm.  I 
usually  find  that  my  mind  falls  into 
step." 

"  I'll  try  it,"  Julietta  cried.  "  I  get  the 
blue  devils  too." 


The  Gleaners 

"  And  feel  sure  the  job  you're  working 
so  hard  on  will  never  turn  out  right  ?  " 

"I  should  say  1  do!" 

"  Was  that  why  you  liked  the  book  so 
much — and  the  picture?" 

"  Why,  no  1  I  don't  believe  I  had 
thought  of  that  as  much  as  you  have. 
But  I'm  so  glad  you  told  me.  It  will 
help  me  a  lot." 

"  It  has  helped  me ;  helped  me  to  go 
on,  I  mean.  But  I'm  not  out  of  the  woods 
yet ;  I  can't  even  see  the  sun  so  I  can  tell 
for  sure  which  direction  I'm  going  in." 

Julietta  had  once  spent  a  summer  with 
some  friends  who  had  a  camp  far  up 
north  close  to  the  great  forests. 

"  And  isn't  there  any  moss  on  the  north 
side  of  trees?"  she  asked. 

"  I  haven't  been  able  to  find  any." 

"  And  no  one  has  blazed  a  trail  ?  " 

"  Oh,   of  course !     But  the  trails  are 
[62] 


"Symbols 


not  very  fresh,  and  it  takes  a  keen  eye  to 
pick  out  old  blazings.  That's  why  this 
book  helped  so.  I  know  that  the  man 
who  followed  this  trail  got  out — or  at 
least  his  work  did." 

"  He  himself  is  buried  on  the  forest's 
edge,"  said  Julietta,  who  had  read  the 
book  through. 

Sheppard  looked  at  her  appreciatively. 
"  You  love  symbols,"  he  averred. 

"  Do  I  ?  "  she  questioned.  "  You  are 
teaching  me  so  many  things  about  my- 
self." 


[63] 


VIII 
"MOLT  A  SIMPATICA" 

THEIR  way,  which  they  had  not 
chosen  but  were  following  un- 
thinkingly, led  across  the  deep 
ravine  and  past  the  little  stone  house  of 
the  Hansons. 

He  ran  ahead,  as  they  approached  the 
house,  and  left  the  book  at  the  door. 

"  I  hate  impedimenta,"  he  admitted 
when  he  rejoined  her  in  the  road  ;  "  even 
when  I  am  as  much  indebted  to  it  as  I  am 
to  that  book." 

"  Do  you  paint  ?  "  she  asked,  suddenly. 
The  sight  of  the  stone  house  and  of  the 
Japanese  who  opened  the  door  had 
brought  back  to  her  all  the  mystery  about 
Mr.  Sheppard. 

[64] 


"Mo  It  a    Simpatica" 

"  No,"  he  answered ;  "  but  I'd  like  to. 
That's  why  I'm  here." 

She  looked  puzzled.  "  Let  me  ex- 
plain," he  went  on.  "  I'm  not  aspiring  to 
paint  people  as  Millet  painted  them — not 
with  pigments.  I  want  to  write  plays — 
real  plays  about  real  people.  I've  written 
light  operas ;  I've  made  a  good  deal  of 
money  ;  most  people  think  I  ought  to  be 
satisfied  to  go  on  as  I've  begun.  I  can't. 
I'm  sick  of  being  a  clown.  They  tell  me 
I  ought  to  be  glad  I  can  make  the  world 
laugh.  It  isn't  laughing  that  I  make 
them  do  ;  it's  grinning.  They  say  I  ought 
to  be  glad  I  can  make  people  forget.  I 
don't  want  to  make  them  forget !  I  want 
to  make  them  think  and  feel.  I'm  tired  of 
being  a  mountebank  who  sweats  like  a 
hired  rogue  to  distract  men  and  women 
from  their  peril  and  their  obligations. 

"Millet  got  ashamed  to  paint  nude 
[65] 


The  Gleaners 

women  to  pander  to  Parisian  taste.  I  got 
ashamed  to  go  on  writing  comic  operas. 
His  friends  said  he  was  crazy.  My  friends 
say  I  am  crazy.  He  deserved  infinitely 
greater  credit  than  I  do,  because  when  he 
turned  his  back  on  what  he  was  ashamed 
of,  he  had  a  young  wife  and  two  little 
babies,  and  he  was  penniless.  I  have  no 
one  depending  on  me,  and  I  am  not  poor. 
But  it  hasn't  been  easy.  That's  why  I 
came  here — away  from  every  one  I  know. 
I've  got  a  play  that  I  want  to  write.  But 
it  comes  hard.  I  feel  worse  than  Millet 
did  when  he  was  painting  The  Glean- 
ers." 

"  But  you're  encouraged  now !"  Julietta 
cried,  eagerly. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  encouraged 
to  keep  on  trying  to  get  out  of  the  wood," 
he  said ;  "  but  I  don't  see  yet  how  I'm 

going  to  do  it." 

[66] 


"Molt a    Simpatica" 

"  I  don't  believe  I  understand,"  she 
murmured. 

"  It  isn't  the  purpose  that  I  lack — now," 
he  explained  ;  "it's  the  vision.  I  want  to 
do  my  play,  but  there's  something  that 
balks  me ;  something  that  doesn't '  come.'  " 

"  I  wish  I  could  help  you,"  she  said. 
"  But  I'm  not  clever." 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  he  replied. 
"  However,  it  isn't  half  so  likely  to  be 
cleverness  that  helps  as  sympathy — the 
right  kind  of  sympathy." 

Julietta  smiled  wistfully.  "  I  can  see," 
she  said,  "  how  sympathy  might  help  to 
console  you  for  failing  to  do  what  you 
want  to  do  ;  but  I  can't  see  how  it  could 
help  you  to — to  write  a  good  play ! " 

He  laughed. 

"  I  don't  blame  you  for  not  quite  see- 
ing," he  explained.  "  But  it's  this  way  : 
we  Anglo-Saxons  have  a  rather  limited 
[67] 


The  Gleaners 


way  of  using  the  words  sympathy  and 
sympathetic,  as  if  they  had  only  one  mean- 
ing and  that  was  allied  to  pity  or  com- 
passion. I've  picked  up  a  few  foreign 
phrases,  now  and  then  in  my  stays  abroad, 
and  I  particularly  like  one  that  the 
Italians  use  a  great  deal :  they  say  of 
some  one — well,  if  I  were  in  Italy  I  should 
say  of  you  that  you  are  molta  simpatica; 
meaning  that  you  and  I  have  many  tastes 
and  ideals  and  understandings  in  com- 
mon ; — as  we'd  say  in  our  clumsier  speech, 
that  we  '  get  on  together '  very  well. 
That's  what  I  meant  by  the  sympathy  that 
helps." 

"  I  see,"  she  murmured.  "  Isn't  it 
pretty?  'Molta  simpatica  I '  What  a 
lovely  thing  to  be ! " 

"  Isn't  it  ?  And  how  wonderfully  it  does 
help !  I've  met  any  number  of  persons 

after  whom,  when   they  had   left  me,  I 
[68] 


"Molt a    Simpatica" 

could  only  look  and  blink — in  a  dazed 
kind  of  way — and  say :  '  How  clever  1 ' 
But  I  can't  seem  to  remember  that  any 
one  of  that  sort  ever  gave  me  any  real 
help.  The  people  who  do  that  are  the 
ones  who  contrive,  in  some  lovely  way,  to 
set  us  right  with  our  best  selves.  I  don't 
seem  to  know  just  how  to  express  it — but 
you  know  I  You've  met  people  whose 
effect  on  you  was  to  make  you  dig  down 
and  bring  up  some  splendid  aspiration 
that  you  used  to  cherish  and  then  had 
put  by,  thinking  you  could  never  reach 
anywhere  near  to  it ;  and,  somehow,  these 
people  make  you  believe  you  can;  and 
you  try  again — and  succeed !  Now, 
nobody  need  tell  me  that  the  fairies  are 
all  dead,  while  miracles  like  that  are  still 
happening  in  this  world  !  " 

"  No  indeed ! "  cried  Julietta,  her  eyes 
shining  with  new  visions. 
[69] 


The    Gleaners 


"  It  is  because  I  wanted  to  get  that 
magic  into  my  play  that  I  was  '  stuck/  " 
he  went  on.  "  I  want  my  play  to  be  like 
the — the  person  who  is  '  molta  simpatica' : 
to  give  every  one  who  sees  it  a  feeling 
that  he's  finer  than  he  thought  he  was, 
or  than  any  body  ever  thought  he  was. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  then  he'll  try  to  do 
something  to  prove  it  I  " 

"  You  can  do  it ! "  Julietta  declared, 
turning  to  him  a  radiant  face  whereon, 
already,  "the  magic"  had  begun  to  work 
its  charm.  "  I  never  supposed  there  was 
any  one  in  the  world  with  such  a  lovely 
dream.  And  I  cannot  hope  to  make  you 
understand  what  it  has  meant  to  me  to — 
to  know  about  it." 

"  It  is  lovelier  now  than  it  has  ever  been 
before,"  he  said  gently.     "  You  have  en- 
hanced it  quite  wonderfully,  Miss  Grier 
— because  you  are  '  molla  simpatica?  " 
[70] 


IX 

A  NEIGHBOURLY   CALL 

AFTER  that  walk  and  its  wonder- 
working conversation,  Julietta 
was  almost  too  tumultuously 
happy  to  think.  But  she  was  aware — her 
heart,  if  not  her  brain,  was  telling  her 
things — that  life  could  never  again  be  to 
her  as  it  had  been :  monotonous,  self- 
centered,  fretful.  Whether  it  was  or  was 
not  to  be  that  she  should  see  much  of  this 
young  man,  enjoy  much  of  his  transfigur- 
ing companionship,  she  could  never  again 
be  without  this  ideal  that  he  had  given 
her  :  "  Molta  simpatica  "  /  She  had  long 
bemoaned  the  absorption  by  her  house- 
hold tasks  which  kept  her,  as  she  thought, 
from  being  clever  and  so  of  consequence 
to  her  world.  But  here  was  a  new  vista 


T/ie  Gleaners 

opened  up  to  her :  a  beautiful  new  life  in 
which  one  came  into  happiness  and  help- 
fulness not  by  what  one  could  do,  but  by 
what  one  could  feel. 

Julietta  was  singing — softly,  to  her- 
self— when  she  opened  the  front  door  and 
entered  the  dusky  house.  The  air  in- 
doors was  heavy  with  stove  heat;  the 
house  was  an  old-fashioned  one,  and 
stoves  instead  of  steam-pipes  had  long 
been  a  deep  grievance  of  the  old  Julietta 
who  had  such  a  talent  for  grievances. 
Tingling  as  she  was  with  her  brisk  walk, 
and  with  her  vigorous  new  interests,  she 
felt  stifled  with  the  staleness  of  that  hot, 
heavy  air.  Did  it  strike  her  menfolk 
that  way  when  they  came  into  it?  she 
wondered.  And  how  had  it  seemed  to 
them  to  come  home,  evening  after  even- 
ing, not  only  out  of  the  crisp  air  into  this 
closeness,  but  out  of  their  world  of  fresh 
[72] 


A  Neighbourly  Call 

interests  into  this   world  of   hers  where 
the  interests  were  all  stale  ? 

She  opened  several  windows  and  one 
door,  and  let  in  a  rush  of  new  air  to  rout 
the  old.  Then,  when  the  atmosphere 
seemed  more  breathable,  she  lighted  the 
reading  lamp,  took  the  wrappers  from 
two  magazines  that  had  come  in  the 
afternoon  mail,  and  looked  about  wist- 
fully for  some  other  little  thing  that  she 
might  do  to  give  the  room  a  look  of 
home.  She  was  sorry  she  had  not 
brought  home  a  few  of  the  most  gorgeous 
red  maple  leaves  to  put  on  her  supper- 
table.  To-morrow  she  would  do  this ! 

For  to-morrow Well !  John  Shep- 

pard  had  told  her  that  it  was  a  delight 
to  him  to  have  some  one  to  walk  with 
who  walked  as  well  as  she  did,  and  an 
even  greater  delight  to  have  some  one  to 
talk  with  who  was  interested  in  such 
[73] 


The  Gleaners 


real  things.  He  worked  hard,  usually, 
until  mid-afternoon,  he  said ;  and  then 
he  obliged  himself  to  go  out  for  exercise. 
Hitherto  he  had  had  to  make  himself  go 
out.  But  if  he  could  hope  that  some- 
times he  might  stop  in  and  see  if  she 
were  inclined  for  a  walk 

Julietta's  assurance  that  he  "  might 
indeed "  was  so  eager  that  it  would 
almost  certainly  have  dampened  the 
ardour  of  a  man  who  was  hoping  for  the 
pleasurable  lure  of  coquetry.  But  John 
Sheppard  had  been  surfeited  with  co- 
quetry ;  and  when  he  wanted  more  of  it, 
he  knew  where  he  could  go  and  un- 
failingly find  it. 

At  supper  that  night  Julietta  had  so 
pretty  a  flush,  so  radiant  a  look — what 
with  the  long  walk,  and  with  other  things 
— that  each  of  her  three  menfolk  was 
conscious  of  a  surprised  realization  that 
[74] 


A  Neighbourly  Call 

Juliette,  was  pretty.  She  had  another 
surprise  in  store  for  them,  too. 

"Steve,"  she  said,  "do  you  suppose 
it  would  do  any  good  to  put  a  notice  for 
a  girl  in  your  store  ?  I've  made  up  my 
mind  to  get  one,  if  I  can ;  even  if  she 
isn't  very  good,  she  can  sweep  a  little, 
and  dust  a  little,  and  peel  potatoes,  and 
wash  dishes.  And  that'll  give  me  a  tiny 
bit  more  time  for  some  things  I  want  to 
do." 

"  You  know,"  her  father  reminded, 
"  that  you've  tried  that  kind  before  ;  and 
it  always  ended  in  your  doing  every- 
thing yourself,  and  being  exasperated  all 
the  while,  to  boot." 

"  I  remember,"  Juliette,  replied.  "  I 
don't  want  another  incompetent  if  I  can 
get  any  other  kind.  If  we  can  get 
efficiency  for  a  good  price,  I'd  rather 
go  without  something  less  essential,  and 
[75] 


The   Gleaners 

have  it.  But  if  we  can't !  Well,  I'll 

take  what  I  can  get,  and  try  to  overlook 
what  it  won't  help  me  to  see." 

"  I'll  put  the  notice  up  to-night,"  Steve 
declared.  "And  I'll  say  :  '  Best  Wages.' " 

"We'll  all  help,"  Frank  interposed. 
"  Maybe  there's  something  father  or  I 
could  do  towards  hunting  down  a  good 
one." 

"  Say  '  No  washing,'  Steve,  please," 
Julietta  directed.  "  I  couldn't  think  of 
taking  the  washing  away  from  Mrs. 
Mears  ;  she  needs  the  work." 

Julietta's  menfolk  stared — a  little  ;  but, 
being  wise  in  their  day  and  generation, 
they  made  no  remark. 

She  wondered  if  he  would  come  the 

very  next  afternoon.     Would  he  think  of 

her  again  so  soon  ?     Or,  if  he  did,  would 

he  persuade  himself  that  she  would  be 

[76] 


A  Neighbourly  Call 

surprised — perhaps  even  amused — to 
find  him  there  so  quickly,  and  be 
ashamed  to  come? 

Julietta  could  not  make  up  her  mind 
whether  to  stay  in  and  hope  that  he  might 
call,  or  to  go  out  and  hope  that  she 
might  meet  him.  She  blushed  when  she 
realized  how  eager  to  see  him  again  she 
was.  Her  glance  roved  about  the  sitting- 
room  restlessly.  What  had  she  been 
wont  to  do  with  herself  in  the  afternoons 
before  yesterday  ?  She  could  hardly  re- 
member. 

In  the  midst  of  her  quandary  the  door- 
bell rang.  Julietta's  heart  jumped,  and 
the  pretty  colour  came  flooding  back  into 
her  cheeks.  She  looked  into  the  hall- 
rack  mirror,  to  make  sure  she  had  no 
straying  locks. 

Mr.  Sheppard  looked  more  than  a  little 
self-conscious. 

[77] 


The   Gleaners 

"  I  didn't  mean  to  bother  you  again  so 
soon,  Miss  Grier — really  I  didn't !  "  he 
apologized.  "But  I  don't  mean  to  im- 
pose on  your  good  nature  by  asking  you 
to  walk  with  me  to-day.  This  is  just  a 

neighbourly  call I   ought  to  have 

gone  to  the  back  door,  by  rights.  You 
see,  I've  never  known  anybody  here  that 
I  could  ask  information  of.  And  to-day 
when  my  Jap  told  me  that  we  must  send 
some  household  linens  out  to  be  washed, 
I  wondered  if  I  mightn't  trouble  you  to 
tell  me  where  to  send  them.  I'm  afraid 
to  entrust  Mrs.  Hanson's  pretty  things  to 
a  laundry." 

11  Why,  of  course  1 "  she  cried.  "  I've 
a  splendid  laundress.  Come  in — won't 
you  ? — and  let  me  tell  you  about  her." 

He     hesitated.      "  I'm     afraid    you're 
busy,"  he  began  ;  but  even  Julietta  could 
see  that  he  wanted  to  be  urged. 
[78] 


A  Neighbourly  Call 

"  Not  a  bit  1 "  she  declared.  "  And  if 
you'd  like  me  to  take  you  over  to  see 
Mrs.  Mears,  I'd  be  only  too  glad  to  do 
it." 

"  It  wouldn't  be  an  imposition  ?  " 

"  Not  at  all  1  I'm  interested  in  Mrs. 
Mears,  and  I've  been  wishing  for  a  good 
excuse  to  go  and  see  her.  I  could  hardly 
go  without  an  excuse,  because  she's  a 
very  busy  woman  and  doesn't  have  much 
time  for  mere  friendly  calls." 

"  Perhaps  she  won't  have  time,  either, 
for  my  table-cloths  ?"  he  hazarded.  "  My 
Jap  told  me  he  heard  it  was  very  difficult 
to  get  good  laundry  work  done  here.  He 
says  some  one  in  the  village  told  him  that 
every  week  a  hamperful  of  Mrs.  Grant 
Higgins'  fine  things  goes  to  Paris  for 
laundering." 

"  Not  really  ?  " 

"  Well,  I've  never  seen  the  hamper,  of 
[79] 


The   Gleaners 

course.  But  it  isn't  the  first  time  I've 
heard  of  that  thing  being  done." 

Julietta's  eyes  flashed.  "  The  idea  I " 
she  cried. 

He  loved  the  spirit  of  her,  and  his  look 
said  so  plainly. 


[80] 


X 

FINDING  HIS  HEROINE 

ON  the  way  to  Mrs.  Mears'  cottage, 
which  was  quite  at  the  outskirts 
of  the  village,  they  passed  the 
great  stone  gateway  of  the  Grant  Higgins 
place.  The  house,  set  way  back  in  the 
splendidly  shaded  grounds,  was  hardly 
from  any  view-point  visible  to  the  curi- 
ous common  eye.  Beside  the  gate  was  a 
lodge  house,  which  had  occasioned  no 
small  amount  of  talk  when  it  was  built. 
It  was  the  only  one  for  miles  about. 
Other  millionaires  had  great  mansions, 
but  there  was  not  one  of  them  whose 
front  door-bell  any  one  in  all  the  world 
might  not  ring,  if  he  had  the  temerity. 
In  vain  was  it  explained  on  the  Higgins' 

behalf  that  the  lodge  bell  was  their  front 
[81] 


The  Gleaners 


door-bell,  and  any  one  might  pull  it.  The 
community  felt  its  intelligence,  as  well  as 
its  democracy,  affronted  by  such  an  ex- 
planation. 

"So  you  think,"  John  Sheppard  re- 
sumed, nodding  towards  the  great  gate- 
way, "  that  Mrs.  Higgins  should  be  able 
to  get  her  clothes  washed  in  this  coun- 
try ?  " 

"  I  don't  care  a  fig  about  where  she 
gets  her  foolish  clothes  washed  1 "  Julietta 
cried.  "  But  I  do  think  the  Higginses 
ought  to  obey  the  law  about  gleaning  the 
corners  of  their  fields  ! " 

He  looked  puzzled.  "  I  don't  believe 
I  understand,"  he  murmured. 

"  Did  you  read  in  the  papers,  two  days 
ago,  that  Grant  Higgins  has  given  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  for  an  Erring 
Women's  Refuge  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I  believe  I  did." 
[82] 


Finding  His  Heroine 

"  Didn't  it  make  you — well,  didn't  it 
make  you  wonder,  at  least  ?  " 

"  It  did  !  My  mind  has  been  running 
on  themes  like  that — in  connection  with 
my  play." 

"  Is  your  play  going  to  be  about  such 
things?" 

"  It's  trying  to  be  !  But I  don't 

know  what  the  matter  is  1  I've  got  the 
feeling  strong ;  got  the  intense  will  to  do 
it.  But  I  write  and  write,  and  when  I 
come  to  read  what  I've  written,  it's  the 
same  old  feeble,  futile  protest  that  no- 
body ever  really  heeds.  Sometimes,  if  a 
few  writers  get  bitter  and  incendiary 
enough,  they  can  stir  up  a  revolution 
against  greed.  But  what  happens  ?  Un- 
told suffering  of  the  innocent ;  a  little  suf- 
fering of  the  guilty  ;  reaction  ;  and  the  old 
state  of  affairs  again.  Like  France  ex- 
changing mild  Louis  for  bloodthirsty 
[83] 


The  Gleaners 

Robespierre  and  then  for  tyrannical 
Napoleon.  I'd  like  to  be  one  of  those 
that  helped  on  a  happier  day — that's  the 
only  real  thing  there  is  to  live  for ! — but 
stirring  up  ire  against  Mrs.  Higgins' 
laundry  hampers  isn't  any  way  to  bring 
the  magic  feeling  that  we  talked  about ; 
do  you  think  so  ?  " 

Julietta  shook  her  head  thoughtfully. 
"  I  suppose  it  is  not,"  she  said.  "  And 
I'm  sure  7  don't  feel  ire  against  any  one 
for  being  rich — only  (since  the  day  before 
yesterday  !)  for  gleaning  the  corners  after 
having  harvested  the  field." 

Sheppard  looked  up  sharply.  "  What 
do  you  mean  ?  "  he  asked. 

"I  mean,"  she  answered  with  spirit, 
"  that  if  people  would  only  remember  the 
old  law  about  gleaning,  it  would  help  to 
solve  .  so  many  things.  I  don't  blame 
anybody  for  not  remembering  it  / 
[84] 


Finding  His  Heroine 

didn't — until  the  picture  made  me  look 
it  up.  I  just  wish  it  might  be  possible  to 
put  other  people  in  mind  of  it." 

"  I  don't  believe  I  know — except  in  a 
very  vague  way,"  he  faltered. 

"Well,  as  I  say,  I  didn't,  either,"  she 
replied,  "  until  I  had  looked  it  up  in  the 
Bible.  It  seems  that  in  other  nations  of 
olden  days  the  widow  and  the  father- 
less had  to  become  dependents  on  their 
nearest  male  kin.  But  in  Israel  a  woman 
who  wanted  to  be  beholden  to  nobody 
could  work  for  her  bread  and  get  it. 
Those  that  reaped  the  harvests  were 
ordered  not  to  pick  their  fields  too  clean ; 
so  that  when  the  gleaners  came  along 
there  might  be  enough  left  to  reward 
their  back-breaking  toil.  The  laws  are 
plain ;  I  read  'em  all.  There's  not  a 
word  about  building  granaries  and  lock- 
ing the  doors,  and  if  the  widow  and  the 
[85] 


'The  Gleaners 


fatherless  can  answer  questions  satis- 
factorily, the  wealthy  farmer  is  to  hand 

x 

them  out  a  bit  of  dole.  Not  a  word  1 
He's  to  let  them  work  in  his  field,  and 
to  see  to  it  that  they  get  enough  to 
glean.  And  he's  to  do  it  remembering 
that  he  was  once  a  bondman  in  the  land 
of  Egypt  1  I've  heard  all  that  preached 
about  a  half  a  hundred  times  or  so ;  but 
the  sermons  were  all  about  what  a  good 
daughter-in-law  Ruth  was,  and  how  she 
became  the  great-grandmother  of  David  ; 
and  that  never  seemed  to  have  much  in 
it  for  me.  All  this  other  I  figured  out 
for  myself,  and  I  suppose  that  the  reason 
it  all  seemed  so  wonderful  was  because 
I  tried  it  on  myself,  first  thing." 

Mr.  Sheppard  seemed  so  deep  in 
thought  that  Julietta  could  not  be  sure 
if  he  were  listening  to  her  or  had  gone  on 

some  "  long,  long  trail  "  of  his  own.     But 
[86] 


Finding  His  Heroine 

she  was  feeling  the  exhilaration  of  putting 
her  discovery  into  words.  It  isn't  easy 
to  tell  your  spiritual  evolutions  to  the 
people  who've  lived  beside  you  for  years, 
and  who  think  that  they  know  you  "  like 
a  book."  A  new  acquaintance,  if  it  be 
the  right  kind  and  auspiciously  begun,  is 
a  wonderful  "  developer "  ;  under  its 
stimulus,  all  kinds  of  impressions  flash 
up  in  recognizable  forms  and  likenesses. 
It  is  in  revealing  ourselves  to  new  ac- 
quaintances that  we  find  out,  oftener  than 
in  any  other  one  way,  new  truths  about 
ourselves.  Everybody  ought  to  form  a 
new  acquaintance  of  an  intimate,  con- 
ndence-for-confidence  sort,  at  least  twice 
a  year  ;  some  souls,  that  grow  fast,  need 
one  oftener.  Julietta  had  been  allowing 
herself  far  too  little  of  this  experience ; 
she  had  been  feeling  like  a  blank  plate, 
and  had  given  herself  over  to  bitterness 
[87] 


The  Gleaners 

on  that  account,  when  all  she  needed  was 
exposure  to  the  light,  and  a  touch  of 
stimulating  "  developer."  And  the  darker 
a  blank  plate  has  been  kept,  of  course, 
the  better  the  picture  when  the  flash  of 
light — the  hundredth  of  a  second  flash  of 
real  light — comes.  Which  was  the  se- 
cret, no  doubt,  of  the  clear  image  made 
on  Julietta's  mind  by  the  idea  of  the 
gleaners.  And  so,  whether  Sheppard 
heard  her  or  not,  she  was  far  from  hav- 
ing made  her  speech  in  vain.  For  she 
had  convinced  herself ;  and  that  is  the 
first  step  towards  service. 

But  Sheppard  did  hear.  He  was  keen  ; 
he  knew  what  Julietta  was  giving  him : 
the  first  account  she  had  tried  to  render 
of  her  awakening.  And  he  was  as  rever- 
ent towards  it  as  he  had  been  towards 
the  story  of  Millet's  sharp  recall  from 

his  least-worthy  self.     He  was  reverent 
[88] 


Finding  His  Heroine 

towards  both,  because  he  had  so  vivid  a 
recollection  of  the  day,  not  long  ago, 
when  he  had  seemed  without  other  aim 
than  the  continued  writing  of  comic 
operas ;  and  of  the  very  next  day,  when 
he  knew,  as  well  as  he  knew  now,  that 
he  was  through  with  his  jester's  job  for- 
ever. He  remembered,  too,  how  he  had 
tried  to  tell  his  friends ;  and  how  they 
had  laughed  at  him  and  told  him  he 
was  "  bilious."  He  remembered  the 
first  time  he  had  been  able  to  open  his 
heart ;  it  was  to  a  comparative  stranger, 
too! 

He  was  doing  more,  though,  than  lis- 
tening and  remembering.  He  was  look- 
ing ahead.  Some  things  Julietta  was 
saying  fitted  strangely  well  into  the 
blank  places  of  that  puzzle  picture  he 
called  his  drama.  When  she  said :  "  I 
guess  the  reason  it  seemed  so  wonderful 
[89] 


The  Gleaners 

was  because  I  tried  it  on  myself,  first 
thing,"  he  stopped  stock-still  in  the  road. 

"  That's  it  1  "  he  cried,  exultantly.  "  Of 
course  !  That's  it  1 " 

She  looked  a  little  mystified ;  the  ex- 
uberance of  his  affirmation  almost  startled 
her. 

"  I  began  on  Mrs.  Mears,"  she  went 
on,  "our  washwoman,  whom  we're  go- 
ing to  see." 

And  she  told  him  the  simple  story  of 
her  talk  with  Mrs.  Mears. 

When  she  had  finished,  Sheppard 
turned  to  her  with  delight  irradiating 
his  face. 

"Miss  Grier,"  he  said,  "you've  no  idea 
what  you  have  done  for  me  1  I've  been 
trying  to  write  my  drama,  and  to  put 
into  it  some  of  the  things  I  feel  about 
such  gross  injustices  as  are  wrought  by 
men  like  Grant  Higgins.  But  the  thing 
[90] 


Finding  His  Heroine 

wouldn't  work  out.  It's  easy  to  do  the  or- 
dinary indictment ;  but  it  has  been  done  so 
often  and  to  so  little  purpose.  You  know 
how  different  I  wanted  to  make  mine. 
But  I  couldn't.  It  kept  getting  away 
from  me  and  running  into  stereotyped 
situations  that  I  knew  would  never  make 
people  think ;  they'd  look,  and  listen,  and 
go  home  saying :  '  Those  rich  men  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  themselves ! '  And 
when  they  were  home,  they'd  forget.  I 
wanted  to  write  a  play  that  would  make 
each  and  every  one  who  saw  it  demand 
of  himself:  'What  can  7  do  about  it?' 
But  that  play  wouldn't  come.  You've 
brought  it  to  me !  You've  made  me  see 
how  I  was  all  wrong.  I  was  trying  to 
write  my  play  about  a  man  like  Grant 
Higgins.  And  it's  you  I  should  have 
been  writing  about !  " 

"  Me  ?  "  echoed  Julietta,  in  amazement. 
[90 


The  Gleaners 

"  How  could  anybody  write  a  play  about 
me?" 

"  You  wait  and  see ! "  he  cried.  "  But 
you  must  help  me,  too.  And  if  we  can 
write  something  that  will  make  every 
one  go  home  and  try  the  doctrine  on 
Mrs.  Mears,  the  Grant  Higginses  will 
soon  be  taken  care  of.  ...  And  yet 
you  say  that  you're  not  clever  I " 


[92] 


XI 

A  GLEANER 

MRS.  MEARS  was  ironing,  and 
Julietta  persuaded   her  to  let 
them  come  into  the  kitchen  to 
talk  to  her. 

"I  know  what  it  means  to  be  inter- 
rupted— even  for  a  few  minutes — when 
your  irons  are  just  right  and  you  have  a 
big  piece  of  evenly-dampened  linen  dry- 
ing on  your  board,"  Julietta  said.  So 
they  were  admitted  to  the  kitchen,  where 
Mrs.  Mears  had  to  clear  off  two  chairs 
before  she  could  ask  them  to  sit  down. 

"  I  don't  always  leave  things  get  piled 

up  this  way,"  she  apologized.     "  But  this 

bein'  such   a   fine  dryin*  day,  I  washed 

later' n  usual — in  case  it'd  maybe  rain 

[93] 


The  Gleaners 


to-morrow.  An'  then,  without  waitin'  to 
clean  up  none,  I  had  to  begin  ironin',  be- 
cause there's  some  o'  these  things  Mrs. 
Ellendorf  wants  to-night — 'count  o'  Mr. 
Ellendorf  goin'  away." 

"So  Mrs.  Ellendorf  is  one  of  your 
customers?"  Julietta  asked.  She  was 
hopeful  of  finding  out  the  names  of  all 
Mrs.  Mears'  patrons. 

"  Yes'm  ;  I've  washed  fer  her  fer  quite 
some  time.  My  customers  is  mostly 
pretty  steady,  I  must  say.  What  I'd  do 
if  they  wasn't,  I  don't  know.  A  lady  that 
come  here  yesterday  was  real  provoked 
with  me  because  I  couldn't  take  her 
washin'  until  she  gets  a  new  girl.  I  tried 
t'  tell  her  how  I  couldn't  do  no  more'n 
what  I'm  doing,  an'  couldn't  put  off  none 
o'  my  steady  people  fer  an  extry.  She 
was  as  cross  as  sticks  1  Said  she  didn't 
know  what  workin'  people  was  comin'  to 
[94] 


A  Gleaner 

when  a  lady  couldn't  get  her  clothes 
washed.  '  There's  the  laundry  1 '  I  says. 
'  They  charge  too  outrageous,'  she  says  ; 
'an'  besides,  they  ruin  things.'  I  guess 
that  talk  with  you  must  've  made  me  kind 
o'  sassy,  Miss  Grier ;  fer  I  spoke  right  up 
to  her,  an'  says :  '  But  I'll  bet  if  I  did  yer 
clothes,  an'  did  'em  careful  an'  tried  t' 
charge  you  what  the  laundry  does,  you'd 
have  threatened  t'  put  the  law  on  me  fer 
a  thief  an'  a  robber.'  " 

Julietta  laughed  delightedly.  Mrs. 
Mears  was  leading  up  quite  easily  to 
what  was  on  Julietta's  mind. 

"I've  been  thinking,  Mrs.  Mears,"  she 
said,  "  that  if  you  were  willing  I'd  go  to 
each  of  your  patrons  and  tell  them  how  I 
had  come  to  feel  about  paying  you  ;  and 
see  if  I  can  get  any  of  the  others  to  see  it 
the  same  way.  I  know  how  you  feel: 
you  wouldn't  want  to  take  a  chance  of 
[95] 


The  Gleaners 

losing  a  steady  customer.  But  if  / 
asked !" 

Mrs.  Mears'  lips  trembled  for  a  moment 
before  she  could  command  herself  to 
speak. 

"  If  you  think  they  wouldn't  take  it 
amiss,"  she  ventured.  "  It'd  mean  an 
awful  lot  t'  me  if  I  was  t'  get  just  that 
much  more.  It'd  be  as  much  as  Elsie 
gets,  barrin'  car  fare,  for  her  week's  work ; 
an'  some  besides.  I  could  keep  her  at 
home  t'  help  me  a  bit  with  the  housework  ; 
an'  maybe  I  could  have  her  learn  some, 
thing  that'd  give  her  a  chance  at  a  better 
job  than  three  dollars  a  week." 

"  Of  course  you  could  !  "  cried  Julietta, 
in  an  inclusive  affirmation.  "  And  I'm 
going  this  very  day  to  see  about  it." 

She  was  so  eager  to  put  the  proposi- 
tion before  those  other  women  that  she 
could  hardly  wait  for  Mr.  Sheppard  to 
[96] 


A  Gleaner 

conclude    his  simple  arrangement  with 
Mrs.  Mears. 

Once  they  were  outside  again — out  of 
the  steaming  hot  kitchen  where  Mrs. 
Mears  spent  nearly  all  her  days — and 
drawing  long  breaths  of  the  balmy 
October  air,  John  Sheppard  turned  to 
Julietta  and  cried : 

"The  wonder  of  it!" 

"The  wonder  of  what?"  Julietta 
echoed. 

"  Of  everything !  Of  the  tremendously 
moving  human  story  that  you  make  me 
see  !  Of  its  having  waited — so  '  inevita- 
ble '  a  story !  — for  me  to  do.  And  most 
of  all,  of  your  bringing  it  to  me  in  just 
this  way.  I  call  it  quite  the  most  splendid 
thing  that  ever  happened  to  any  young 
man  in  or  out  of  a  fairy  tale  !  " 

The    pink  that  was  so   pretty  came 
flooding  into  Julietta's  cheeks. 
[97] 


The  Gleaners 


"  I — why,  it's  nothing — what  I  did  ;  the 
wonderful  part  is  all  in  what  you  made  of 
it,"  she  murmured.  "  But  I'm  glad — I'm 
very  glad,  if  I  helped,  even  a  little.  That's 
wonderful  to  me  !  I  never  expected  to  be 
worth  even  that  much." 

"Worth!"  he  cried.  "Why,  you're 
worth  all  the  other  young  women  I  ever 
heard  of !  You're  a  real  heroine  1  If 
there  could  be  just  one  like  you  in  every 
community— one  who,  when  an  ideal 
came  to  her,  grappled  with  it  and  wouldn't 
let  it  go  till  she  had  got  the  best  out  of  it 
for  her  own  life  and  those  around  her — it 
wouldn't  take  long  to  make  the  world  a 
sweeter  place  to  live  in." 

Julietta's  eyes  filled  with  grateful,  happy 
tears.  A  week  ago  she  had  not  known 
there  was  so  much  glory  in  God's  world. 


[98] 


XII 
JULIETTA'S  PLAY 

JOHN     SHEPPARD    wished    very, 
very   much    that    he    might    have 
heard  Julietta  make  her  plea  to  the 
several  patrons  of  Mrs.  Mears.     But  he 
realized    how    impossible  that   was.     It 
was   sufficiently   difficult  for  Julietta  to 
make  these  calls  and  tell  her  story ;  it 
would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  her 
to  take  a  strange  young  man  along. 

So  she  went  alone  from  house  to  house 
of  the  five  other  patrons ;  and  John  Shep- 
pard,  at  a  discreet  distance  down  the 
street,  waited,  in  an  agony  of  impatience, 
her  reappearance.  It  made  him  heart- 
sick when  he  thought  how  liable  her 
lovely  ardour  was  to  meet  with  a  chill 
[99] 


The  Gleaners 

rebuff ;  and  yet  he  dared  not  stay  by 
her  to  protect  her. 

She  was  biting  her  lip  to  keep  from 
crying  when  she  came  away  from  Mrs. 
Ellendorf's. 

"  She  says,"  Julietta  answered  to  John 
Sheppard's  look  of  sympathetic  question- 
ing, "  that  the  cost  of  living  is  high 
enough  now,  without  her  trying  to  make 
things  any  worse  by  paying  more  for 
washing.  I — I  guess  she  thinks  I'm 
kind  of  crazy." 

"  Of  course  she  does,"  John  Sheppard 
cried.  "And  yet,  I  see,  she  keeps  an 
electric  runabout.  But  if  anything  should 
happen  to  little  Elsie  Mears — if  she  should 
get  discouraged,  or  too-much  tempted, 
and  should  leave  Grant  Higgins'  factory 
en  route  for  his  Erring  Women's  Refuge 
— how  hard  on  Higgins  Mrs.  Ellendorf 
would  be!  Don't  you  see  how  much 

[100] 


'  s  Play 


more  far-reaching  this  makes  your  play  ? 
For  there  are  only  a  comparatively  few 
Higginses.  But  there  are  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Ellendorfs." 

"  Oh,  let  us  hope  not  !  "  cried  Julietta, 
trying  to  smile  instead  of  crying.  "  For 
if  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  like 
Mrs.  Ellendorf,  I'm  afraid  -  " 

She  stopped  abruptly. 

"  Afraid  the  play  will  never  accomplish 
anything  ?  "  he  finished  for  her. 

Julietta  flushed.  "I  -  No!  "she  de- 
clared. "  Of  all  people  in  the  world  I 
ought  to  be  the  last  to  think  that.  For  a 
week  ago  I'm  sure  any  one  would  have 
seemed  justified  in  saying  of  me  that  if  a 
big,  noble  idea  were  to  be  presented  to 
me,  it  would  almost  certainly  get  the  —  the 
door  slammed  in  its  face.  I  was  dead 
enough  to  make  anybody  hopeless  about 

my  resurrection." 

[101] 


The   Gleaners 


"Why,  you  were  nothing  of  the  sort  I " 
he  contended. 

"  You  don't  know  what  I  was,"  she  re- 
minded him.  "  But  I  know  1  And  I 
know  that  if  I  could  be  resurrected,  any- 
body can  be.  And  I  believe  that  if  any- 
body can  move  the  Ellendorfs — 'Thou 
art  the  man  1 '  This  idea  of  yours " 

"Of  mine?"  he  cried.  "Why,  my 
dear — Miss  Grier !  It's  no  idea  of  mine, 
it's  yours — all  yours  !  every  bit  of  it  All 
I've  done  is  to  appreciate  it — and  appro- 
priate it ! " 

She  smiled  delightedly  at  him. 

"  Have  it  your  own  way  then,"  she 
said.  "  But  if  it  is  to  get  to  other  peo- 
ple, you  must  get  it  to  them.  Because  I 
am  quite  evidently  destined  for  no  suc- 
cess at  that." 

"  You  give  up  easily — don't  you?"  he 

charged,  reproachfully. 
[102] 


*Julietta*s  Play 

She  winced.  "You're  right,"  she  ad- 
mitted, humbly.  "  I  do.  But  can  I,  for 
instance,  try  Mrs.  Ellendorf  again?  If  I 
go  back  there  with  that  same  plea,  she'll 
probably  have  me  arrested  for  a  luna- 
tic." 

"  Well,  if  she  did,"  John  Sheppard  re- 
minded, "it  wouldn't  be  the  first  time 
that  some  one  trying  to  give  the  world  a 
better  ideal  had  been  arrested  and  put  in 
jail — would  it?" 

"  I  suppose  not." 

"  No  ;  nor  it  wouldn't  be  the  last  time. 
But — here  I  go  again  on  my  hobby ! 
— wouldn't  it  be  wonderful  if,  instead  of 
trying  to  break  into  people's  lives  with 
our  new  ideas,  we  could  do  something 
that  would  make  people  come  out  and 
hunt  them  ?  " 

Julietta  smiled.  The  idea  of  Mrs. 
Ellendorf  out  in  an  eager  hunt  for  new 


The  Gleaners 


ideals  was  grimly  amusing  to  her,  fresh 
from  that  chilling  interview. 

"  You  don't  believe  it  could  be  done?" 

"  I  don't  believe  that  /could  do  it" 

"  Couldn't  we  do  it  together?  " 

"  How  ?  " 

"  I'm  not  sure  that  I  know  how  ;  but 
maybe  if  we  think — hard — a  way  will 
suggest  itself.  You  don't  know  Mrs. 
Ellendorf  very  well  ?  " 

"  Hardly  at  all.  I  have  met  her  a  few 
times,  very  formally ;  but  she  has  never 
been  inside  my  house,  and  this  is  the  first 
time  I  ever  called  on  her." 

"  I  know  the  type  I  No  discoverable 
capacity  for  any  ardour  except  an  ardour 
for  more  possessions.  Yet  there  must  be 
a  spot  in  her  somewhere — a  little,  lonely, 
hungry  spot — that  mere  possessions  can- 
not fill.  If  one  could  only  find  out  what 
it  is  1  Well,  maybe  we  can.  At  any  rate, 
[104] 


"  s  Play 


I  think  we'll  try.  Nearly  everybody 
abandons  Mrs.  Ellendorf  and  her  kind 
after  one  hasty,  discouraging  survey. 
We're  going  to  make  at  least  one  more 
attempt." 
"  Are  we  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;    and    by   '  we  '  I    don't    mean 
1  you,'  all  alone.     I'm  going  to  help,  next 
time.      But  these   first  calls   I'm  afraid 
you'll  have  to  see  through  all  unaided." 
"  Except  by  your  sympathy  -  " 
"  Except  by  my  sympathy  !  " 
"  Then,    forward,   march  !  "   she    said. 
"  I'm  going  to  attack  the  citadel  of  Mrs. 
Updyke." 

"  I  don't  believe  there  was  ever  an- 
other so  worthless  a  crusader  !  "  he  de- 
clared, woefully,  when  she  rejoined  him. 
"  I  can't  tell  you  what  a  cowardly  Pre- 
tender I  feel." 


The   Gleaners 

"  I  suppose,"  she  rejoined,  "  that  pru- 
dence has  sometimes  made  other  men 
keep  quiet  when  they'd  rather  be  in  the 
attacking  party." 

"Doubtless.  But  a  husky  gent  who 
lets  a  lovely  lady  go  ahead  and  meet  the 

enemy  alone !  Well,  what  is  the 

news  of  this  affray  ?  Report  the  killed 
and  wounded." 

"  The  casualties  are  all  on  our  side," 
she  told  him.  "  It  was  a  particular  friend 
of  Mrs.  Updyke's  whose  washing  Mrs. 
Mears  refused  to  do.  Mrs.  Updyke  had 
never  heard  of  such  impertinence.  Is  it 
worth  while  going  on,  do  you  think  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course  it  is  I  You  wait  and 
see." 

So  Julietta  went  on. 

Mrs.  Pendleton  was  an  impressionable 
little  body.  She  said  she'd  love  to  do 
it — but  couldn't ;  her  girls  were  just  at 
[106] 


's   Play 


an  age  where  they  wore  so  many  wash 
clothes  —  dresses  and  petticoats  and 
guimps  and  shirt-waists  —  that  it  would 
ruin  her  to  pay  anything  like  laundry 
prices.  She  was  sorry  !  But  it  was  such 
a  struggle  to  keep  her  girls  looking  nice. 
So  many  of  the  girls  they  went  with  had 
laundresses  by  the  week  in  their  homes. 
If  there  was  anything  else  she  could  do 
for  Mrs.  Mears,  though  1  Did  Julietta 
think  that  Mrs.  Mears  would  like  the 
white  pique  suit  Mrs.  Pendleton's  young- 
est daughter  had  outgrown?  It  was  a 
perfectly  good  suit,  only  too  small.  .  .  . 

"I  tried  to  explain  that  Mrs.  Mears 
had  no  time  to  do  up  white  pique  for  her 
family  ;  but  Mrs.  Pendleton  was  deter- 
mined. So  here's  the  suit  !  " 

Julietta  held  out  a  bundle. 

"  And  Mrs.  Pendleton  is  quite  happy  — 

believing  that  she  has  risen  to  the  occa- 
[107] 


The  Gleaners 

sion.     Now  she  can  dismiss  the  matter 
from  her  mind." 

"  I'm  so  glad  I  didn't  write  my  play 
about  the  Higginses,"  he  said. 


[108] 


XIII 

THE  PLOT  BEGINS 

JULIETTA'S  other  calls  were  also 
unavailing.  No  one  thought  favour- 
ably of  paying  Mrs.  Mears  more 
than  the  least  she  would  take. 

"  Now,"  declared  John  Sheppard,  when 
she  came  away  from  Mrs.  Borland's, 
"  you're  about  to  be  reinforced  :  a  young 
man  with  a  idee  is  about  to  offer  you  his 
services." 

There  was  encouragement  in  his  tone, 
his  manner. 

"  Oh  !  have  you  got  it  ?  "  Julietta  cried, 
eagerly. 

"  I  have  a  little  one — to  begin  on,"  he 
answered.  "The  big  one  that  finally 

works  will  be  yours,  doubtless." 
[109] 


The  Gleaners 

She  shook  her  head.  "  But  tell  me 
yours,"  she  urged. 

"  Mine's  hardly  worth  calling  an  idea," 
he  said  ;  "  it's  a  mere  suggestion.  But  it 
may  do  to  start  on.  What  you  want  is 
another  chance  at  those  five  women — oh, 
yes  you  do  !  You're  not  beaten  1  But 
you  can't  just  exactly  go  back  and  repeat 
your  plea  which  has  failed  to  move  them. 
You  want  to  get  them  in  different  condi- 
tions. What  conditions  ?  " 

44  That's  more  than  I  can  ever  guess," 
replied  Julietta. 

"  I  don't  blame  you.  But — well ! 
before  I  tell  you  what  I  had  thought  of, 
let  me  ask  you  something.  Would  you 
do  me  the  honour  of  going  to  the  theatre 
with  me  ?  " 

44  Why,  I'd  love  to  1 "  Julietta  cried. 

41  Could  you  go  this  evening  ?  " 

44  Yes,  thank  you  ;  I  could." 
[no] 


The  P lot  Begins 


"  This  isn't  dodging  the  question  of 
our  crusade ;  it's  part  of  it,"  he  assured 
her.  "  I'll  unfold  my  little  plan  to  you 
on  our  way  home — after  we've  seen  a 
friend  of  mine  who'll  surely  be  surprised 
to  see  me." 

They  took  the  theatre  train  into  the 
city.  Mr.  Sheppard  had  not  said  any- 
thing about  what  they  were  going  to  see, 
and  Julietta  was  so  pleasurably  excited 
over  the  expedition  and  its  air  of  mys- 
tery that  any  play  would  have  delighted 
her.  But  her  happiness  knew  no  bounds 
when  she  found  herself  in  the  lobby  of 
that  theatre  where  her  favourite  actress 
(who  was  also  the  favourite  of  a  very  large 
and  loyal  public)  was  playing.  Julietta 
waited  in  the  lobby  while  Mr.  Sheppard 
went  to  see  about  tickets. 

He  was  gone  some  time  because,  as  he 
[in] 


The  Gleaners 


explained  on  his  return,  the  house  was 
sold  out,  and  there  had  to  be  some  "  figur- 
ing done  "  as  to  where  he  and  Julietta 
might  sit.  Even  the  house  manager's 
box  was  sold. 

At  length,  however,  a  place  was  found 
for  them,  and  they  saw  the  play.  It  was 
not  until  after  the  last  curtain  had  gone 
down  that  Julietta  learned  she  was  to 
meet  the  star.  She  was  quite  panic- 
stricken — so  evidently  nervous  that  Mr. 
Sheppard  was  a  little  fearful,  remember- 
ing what  he  had  to  propose. 

The  star  was  so  delighted  to  see  him 
that  she  did  not  seem  to  notice  Julietta's 
shyness.  She  was  long  used  to  a  stiff 
self-consciousness  in  people  who  came 
back  onto  the  stage  to  see  her.  Many 
people  she  met  in  drawing-rooms  were 
stiff  and  self-conscious  enough  ;  but  on 
the  stage,  after  a  performance,  when 

[112] 


The  Plot  Begin 

everything  about  them  is  so  distractingly 
unusual  and  interesting,  the  strangers 
from  the  other  side  of  the  footlights  are 
even  less  likely  to  suggest  anything  of 
their  probable  character  when  they  are  at 
their  ease. 

But  Mr.  Sheppard  (whom  the  star  called 
Jack)  was  too  wise  in  the  ways  of  the 
theatre  to  linger  on  a  stage  after  a  per- 
formance when  everybody  from  the  star 
to  the  stage  doorkeeper  is  in  a  hurry  to 
get  away. 

"  I'll  answer  all  your  questions  later," 
he  promised  the  star.  "I'm  living  out  on 
the  North  Shore — writing.  I  want  you  to 
come  out.  I  can't  ask  you  to  my  bachelor 
abode.  But  Miss  Grier,  who  is  not  only 
my  neighbour  but  my  quite  wonderful 
collaborator,  will  invite  you  to  her  house, 
I'm  sure.  And  we  can  all  go  for  a  fine 
walk — I  remember  how  you  love  that  1 " 


The   Gleaners 

Julietta  gasped  ;  but  no  one  noticed  it. 
What  could  Mr.  Sheppard  be  thinking  of! 
Their  old-fashioned  house !  And  no 
girl! 

As  in  a  dream,  Julietta  heard  him 
asking  the  star  if  she  could  come  to- 
morrow ;  heard  her  say  she  could  (she 
was  a  young  woman  of  few  engage- 
ments) ;  heard  him  tell  her  about  the 
ii :  15  train. 

Eleven-fifteen  !  That  meant  luncheon. 
Julietta  wondered  if  she  were  to  have  the 
party. 

The  star  thanked  her ;  and  she  mur- 
mured something  in  reply— she  never 
knew  what. 

"Now  we  must  make  a  dash  for  our 
train  ! "  John  Sheppard  declared.  "  I'll 
meet  you  at  the  station  to-morrow." 

He  hailed  a  taxi,  and  they  whirled  to 
the  depot 


The  Plot  Begins 

"  That'll  be  great  fun  !  "  he  declared- 
meaning  the  party  to-morrow. 

"  Will  it  ?  "  murmured  Julietta,  weakly. 

He  took  no  notice  of  her  anxiousness 
—partly  because  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  it  might  be  an  "  undertaking "  for 
Julietta  to  have  the  star  to  luncheon ;  and 
partly  because  he  was  so  eager  to  impart 
his  suggestion. 

"  Of  course  it  will ! "  he  cried.  "  You'll 
love  her — everybody  does.  And  I  know 
she  will  love  you.  Wait  till  you  see 
her  face  when  she  hears  about  The 
Gleaners" 

"  But  how  can  I  entertain  her  ?  "  Julietta 
faltered. 

"  You  won't  have  to.  She  can  entertain 
herself  and  us  too.  There's  hardly  any- 
thing under  the  shining  sun — any  real 
thing ! — that  she  isn't  interested  in." 

"  I  know — but  I  haven't  any  girl." 
["5] 


The  Gleaners 

"  Any  what  ?  " 

"  Any  servant — any  one  to  do  things 
for  her — like  she's  used  to." 

"  You  mean  about  luncheon  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Well,  we  could  take  her  to  the  North 
Shore  hotel,  if  you'd  rather.  But  if  it's 
her  'ruthers'  you're  thinking  of,  I  can  tell 
you  that  she'd  ten  thousand  times  rather 
go  to  your  house  and  help  get  her  own 
luncheon.  And  I  could  pretty  nearly  tell 
you  what  it  would  be  a  real  treat  to 
her  to  have." 

"What?" 

"Well,  either  pancakes  or  waffles  or 
little  baking-powder  biscuits — hot — with 
honey  on  'em.  Have  you  ever  tried  to 
eat  any  of  those  in  a  hotel — even  the  best 
hotel  in  the  world  ?  " 

"  No." 

"Well,    you're    fortunate.       Then,    I 
[116] 


The  Plot  Begins 

should  think  that  either  corned-beef  hash 
or  Irish  stew  with  dumplings  would  be 
about  all  else  you'd  need  to  make  the 
feast  put  Lucullus'  in  the  shade,  for  her." 

"  Not  really  ?  " 

"  Will  you  try  it  and  see  ?  " 

"  I  will." 


XIV 
LEADING  A  HORSE  TO  WATER 

JULIETTA'S  men-folk  declared  that 
they  would  be  absentees  from  lunch- 
eon, thereby  saving  her  some  work 
and  themselves  the  effort  of  coming  home 
and  being  polite  to  a  strange  and  cele- 
brated lady. 

"  You'll  have  a  better  time,  and  so  will 
we,"  they  said,  good-naturedly.  They 
were  whole-heartedly  delighted  at  Juli- 
etta's  new  interests. 

So  she  made  her  preparations  for  three 
only.  And,  somehow,  it  was  not  of  the 
star's  coming  to  her  house  to  eat  of  her 
cooking  that  she  found  herself  thinking 
with  the  greatest  sense  of  wonder  and 

expectancy,  but  of  John  Sheppard's  com- 
[118] 


Leading  a  Horse  to   W^ater 

ing.  It  was  his  pleasure  that  she  had  in 
mind  as  she  prepared  her  corned- beef 
hash  and  mixed  her  flaky  biscuit.  Juli- 
etta  could  cook  1  It  was  a  severe  temp- 
tation to  her  to  show  what  she  could  do. 
But  she  had  promised  that  she  wouldn't. 
And  in  any  case,  she  was  beginning  to 
realize  that  the  unwearied  spirit,  and  not 
the  elaborateness  of  the  menu,  is  the 
essence  of  hospitality. 

So  she  kept  faithfully  to  her  hash  and 
her  biscuits  and  honey,  and  her  fragrant 
coffee  and  yellow  cream ;  adding  to  his 
suggestions  only  by  a  simple  green  salad 
(her  French  dressing  was  her  pride)  and 
some  hot  gingerbread  and  warm  apple- 
sauce. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  star's 
appreciation  of  that  luncheon !  Nor  of 
John  Sheppard's — either  on  his  own  ac- 
count or  on  hers. 


'The  Gleaners 


And  after  they  had  eaten  and  eaten, 
they  helped  Julietta  wash  and  wipe  the 
dishes  and  put  them  away.  By  this  time, 
Julietta  had  completely  lost  her  self-con- 
sciousness with  the  star.  For  the  star 
was  one  of  those  whom  John  Sheppard 
had  described  as  molta  simpatica;  one 
who  by  a  lovely  magic  set  people  at 
rights  with  their  best  selves. 

"  Ah,  The  Gleaners  !  "  she  exclaimed, 
when  they  had  gone  back  to  the  sitting- 
room.  "  Did  I  tell  you,  Jack,  that  I  was 
at  Barbizon  this  summer?" 

"No!" 

"  I  drove  there  from  Fontainebleau — 
straight  through  the  heart  of  the  forest. 
My  1  what  a  drive.  And  I  stayed  at  that 
famous  little  hotel  near  the  forest's  edge, 
where  the  hamlet  of  Barbizon  begins. 
Have  you  never  been  there  ?  " 

"  Never — yet" 

[120] 


Leading  a  Horse  to   W^ater 

"  Go,  then — at  your  first  opportunity." 

"  I  mean  to,"  he  declared. 

"I  don't  know  when  anything  has 
made  a  profounder  impression  on  me," 
she  went  on.  "  The  majesty  of  the  forest 
and  of  the  great  plain,  and  the  other 
majesty — of  simplicity  and  earnestness 
and  fidelity  to  visions— of  the  few  men 
who  made  that  rude  hamlet  famous 
through  all  the  world.  I  had  something 
of  the  same  feeling  at  Domremy — when 
I  thought  of  little  Jeanne  going  forth 
from  there  with  a  faith  that  was  to  shake 
kingdoms — and  to  defy  faggot-flames  ! 
God  be  praised!"  she  cried,  her  eyes 
brimming,  "  for  the  dreamers  who  have 
stood  fast.  And  I  don't  doubt  that,  to 
Millet,  the  wolf  at  the  door  was  full  as 
terrifying  as  the  crackling  of  the  faggots 
to  little  Jeanne." 

"  I  don't  think  it  was  either  of  those 

[121] 


The  Gleaners 

that  hurt  the  most,"  Julietta  ventured. 
"  I  think  it  was "  she  hesitated. 

"  Mrs.  Ellendorf,"  John  Sheppard  said 
for  her. 

The  star  looked  mystified. 

"  Come  out  in  the  sunshine,  under  the 
maple  trees,"  he  went  on,  "and  we'll  tell 
you." 

Julietta  had  never  known  anything  so 
wonderful  as  the  star's  interest  in  their 
story.  It  was  more  than  satisfying ;  it 
was  inspiring. 

"  And  now  for  the  '  plot ' !  "  she  cried, 
when  she  had  heard  it  "  up  to  date." 

"The  plot  is  a  little  chaotic  as  yet," 
he  admitted.  "  But  the  idea  at  the  back 
of  it  is  something  like  this  :  What  was  it 
we  used  to  do  in  school,  in  arithmetic 
(what  I  mostly  did  in  arithmetic  was  to 

wonder  and  despair !)  when  we  tried  to 
[122] 


Leading  a  Horse  to   Jf^ater 

find  the  least  common  denominator,  or 
greatest  common  divisor,  or  something 

that  went  into  other  things Oh,  my 

goodness !  I'm  making  an  awful  muddle. 
But  here  were  Mrs.  Ellendorf  and  Mrs. 
Updyke,  and  Mrs.  Pendleton  and  Mrs. 
Borland  and  Mrs.  Corwin ;  five  women 
with,  so  far  as  we  could  discover,  no  in- 
terest in  common  except  their  wash- 
woman, and  mighty  little  interest  in  her. 
We  want  to  get  at  those  women.  We 
want  to  try  out,  through  them,  the  power 
of  an  idea.  They  are  not  interested  in 
Mrs.  Mears ;  they  are  not  interested  in 
us ;  they  are  not  interested  in  one  an- 
other ;  but  they  are  interested  in  yoic !  " 

She  looked  dismayed.  "  Am  I  to  preach 
the  gospel  to  them  ?  " 

"  Not  in  the  way  you  think — from  house 
to  house,  as  Miss  Grier  did." 

"  Nor  yet  from  the  roadside,  I  hope  ?  " 
[123] 


The  Gleaners 


"  Dear  me,  no !  A  roadside  preacher 
would  have  no  caste  with  them." 

"  How,  then — in  your  new  play  ?  " 

"That  remains  to  be  dreamed  about. 
But  if  you  preach  it  in  a  play,  we  shall 
never  know  what  the  Ellendorfs  and  Up- 
dykes  do  about  it  after  they  get  home. 
This  is  our  chance  of  a  lifetime  to  set 
them  wrestling  with  an  idea  and  see  the 
finish." 

"I'd  love  the  experience.  But  what 
part  am  I  to  play  ?  " 

"  You're  to  be  the  bait ;  Mrs.  Mears  is 
to  be  the  hook  ;  and  we— Miss  Grier  and 
I — are  to  be  the — well,  I  suppose  the  line 
and  sinker.  However,  it's  the  bait  that's 
the  important  part  of  fishing — getting  the 
kind  of  bait  that  the  fish  you  want  will 
bite  for.  You're  a  magic  bait — almost 
any  fish  that  swims  will  bite  for  you." 

"  That's  pretty— if  untruthful,"  she  re- 
['24] 


Leading  a  Horse  to   Water 

torted,  smiling.  "  How  do  I  attach  my- 
self to  the  hook?" 

"In  the  simplest  way.  We're  going 
there  now." 

"  What  am  I  to  do  ?  " 

"  Become  a  patron — to  as  small  an  ex- 
tent as  you  choose." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"  The  Shore  Suburban  News  to-morrow 
will  announce  that  you  spent  to-day  with 
your  friend,  Miss  Grier." 

"  And  after  that  ?  " 

"  Well,  you're  here  for  four  weeks  at 
least — are  you  not  ?  " 

She  nodded  assent. 

"We  must  not  be  too  precipitate. 
To-morrow  you  have  a  matinee.  Then 

comes  Sunday.  And  then !  Well, 

then  I'm  not  sure.     The  idea  is  to  get  it, 

surreptitiously,  to  the  knowledge  of  these 

ladies  that  you  are  interested  in  Mrs. 

[125] 


The  Gleaners 

Mears,  and  particularly  in  Elsie.  Now, 
how  best  to  do  that " 

"  I'm  to  lead  them  to  the  water — to 
change  our  simile — but  how  am  I  to 
make  them  drink?" 

"They'll  drink  when  they  see  you 
drinking." 

"But  won't  they  quit  when  I  have 
to?" 

"  You  won't  quit — you'll  only  move  on 
your  way.  I  don't  know  what  they'll  do. 
All  we  can  do  is  to  try." 


[126] 


XV 

AND  MAKING  HIM  DRINK 

THEY  tried.  Julietta  wrote  cards 
of  invitation  for  Thursday  after- 
noon, to  meet  the  star.  She 
sent  them  quite  generally  among  her  ac- 
quaintances, and  the  star  heroically  en- 
dured the  "  tea  " — for  the  good  of  the 
cause. 

If  each  of  the  five  was  surprised  to  find 
herself  included  she  was  agreeably  so. 
And  if  each  of  them  was  surprised  at  the 
star's  cordiality  towards  her,  that  also 
was  most  agreeable. 

Then  the  star  did  something  that  was 
as  hard  for  her,  almost,  as  the  crackling 
flames  of  another  kind  of  martyrdom,  she 
said :  she  "  spoke  a  piece."  Mr.  Shep- 

pard    had   written   the  piece;    although 
[127] 


The  Gleaners 

that  fact  was  not  mentioned.  It  was 
about  the  stern  fight  of  a  sixteen  year  old 
girl  to  keep  her  eyes  averted  not  from 
gewgaws,  merely,  but  from  the  most  ordi- 
nary comforts  and  little  girlish  pleasures ; 
of  her  loosening  grasp  on  safety  ;  her 
slipping  into  the  abyss. 

All  the  women  cried  copiously.  The 
star  was  crying,  too. 

"The  great  thing,"  she  said,  when  they 
came  crowding  around  her  with  their 
ejaculations,  "is  to  hold  out  the  saving 
hand  while  there's  yet  time  :  the  hand  of 
justice,  not  the  hand  of  mercy.  Justice 
gives  a  girl  her  fair  fight ;  mercy  cannot 
atone  to  her  for  not  having  had  it.  We 
all  want  to  do  what  we  can  ;  but  some 
of  us  look  too  far  afield  for  it.  Just  now 
I'm  finding  one  opportunity  in  the 

daughter  of  my  laundress "  And 

so  on. 

[128] 


And  Making  Him  Drink 

The  talk  grew  very  animated.  Only, 
at  five  o'clock  the  star  had  to  go  back 
to  town — with  a  multitude  of  things  left 
unsaid. 

"  Do,  please,"  she  entreated  as  she  was 
leaving,  "  any  of  you,  who  are  working 
along  these  lines,  write  to  me  about  your 
experiences.  I'm  so  interested." 

And  within  a  week  she  had  five  letters, 
out  of  a  score  or  more,  relating  to  Elsie 
Mears. 

"  They've  all  been  to  see  her,  anyway," 
the  star  told  Julietta  when  she  showed 
the  letters. 

"  And  offered  her  their  outgrown 
pique  suits,  no  doubt,"  Julietta  observed. 

"  Never  mind,  dear ;  they've  got  to 
work  out  their  own  salvation  ;  nobody 
can  do  it  for  them,  and  no  one  of  them 
can  do  it  for  another.  And  at  least, 

when   we   plead  for  justice  and  not  for 
[129] 


The  Gleaners 

mercy,  we  leave  less  opportunity  for 
weird  experiments  than  people  perpetrate 
in  the  name  of  charity.  A  woman  must 
be  quite  terribly  deficient  in  sanity  who 
can  go  to  see  Mrs.  Mears,  with  a  view  to 
helping  Elsie  to  a  fair  chance,  and  come 
away  with  no  better  grasp  of  the  situation 
than  that  an  outgrown  white  pique  suit 
is  an  equivalent  of  Justice." 

To  each  and  every  letter  the  star  re- 
plied : 

"  You  ask  me  what  you  can  do.  You 
say  that  Mrs.  Mears  has  never  asked  and 
probably  would  not  receive  charity.  It 
would  be  a  great  pity  if  she  would  receive 
it !  The  best  we  can  do  for  such  a  fine, 
sturdy  woman,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  see 
that  she  gets  a  fair  wage  for  her  work. 
Perhaps,  considering  the  heavy  burden 
she  has  to  bear,  and  the  tremendous  fact 
that  she  is  trying  to  rear  six  worthy  young 
citizens,  it  would  not  be  beyond  the  bounds 
of  justice  if  she  were  to  be  paid  more  than 

[130] 


And  Making  Him  Drink 

we  pay  a  laundry  for  less  careful  work. 
But  she  should  certainly,  it  seems  to  me, 
not  be  paid  less.  Beyond  this,  we  have 
no  rights  in  her  affairs,  I  think,  except 
such  as  we  have  in  those  of  any  other 
neighbour  for  whom  we  feel  an  affection- 
ate interest." 

Even  then  "  it  came  hard,"  as  Julietta 
said.  "They  would  have  slaved  them- 
selves sick  to  get  up  a  benefit  for  the 
Mearses.  But  the  undramatic  business 
of  paying  out  an  additional  half  dollar 
a  week  on  the  washing  bill  is  almost  be- 
yond them." 

It  was  here  that  Julietta's  own  heroism 
found  its  stiff  test.  For  not  to  lose  pa- 
tience with  those  women  required  an 
almost  superhuman  steadfastness  to  pur- 
pose. 

She  declared  that  it  was  John  Sheppard 
who  kept  her  to  her  course.  He  declared 
that  it  was  Julietta  who  was  leading  him. 


The  Gleaners 

"  Everybody  wants  to  be  a  sower  of 
seed — the  seeds  of  new  ideals,  new 
ideas,"  he  said.  "  But  hardly  anybody 
wants  to  be  a  gardener,  hovering  over 
the  seeded  soil  and  coaxing  along  the 
blossom  and  then  the  fruit.  You  make 
me  feel  ashamed  of  my  so-much-easier 
undertaking." 

He  told  her,  daily,  that  the  play  was 
going  forward  quite  wonderfully ;  but  he 
never  discussed  its  details  with  her  as 
she  knew  that  he  did  with  the  star. 
This,  Julietta  thought,  was  because  he 
knew  how  ignorant  of  things  dramatic 
she  was.  Yet,  much  as  she  loved  and 
admired  the  star,  she  could  not  help  feel- 
ing jealous  of  her.  How  could  John  Shep- 
pard  resist  falling  in  love  with  her?  What 
could  a  girl  like  Julietta  be  to  him  who 
lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being  in  a 
world  of  women  like  the  star  ? 
[132] 


And  Making  Him  Drink 

Love  brings  its  exceeding  bitterness 
with  every  drop  of  its  honey-sweet ;  and 
Julietta  grew  well  acquainted  with  that 
bitterness  as  golden  October  waned,  and 
November  with  its  sharper  chill  came  on. 

She  saw  John  Sheppard  every  day ;  but 
sometimes  for  a  brief  while  only.  He  was 
working  very  hard,  and  was  often  wrought 
to  a  high  pitch  of  excitability.  So  long 
as  the  star  stayed  in  town,  he  went  in 
frequently  to  see  her.  It  seemed  to  Juli- 
etta that  they  had  both — dramatist  and 
star — drifted  far,  in  the  rapid  current  of 
their  lives — from  interest  in  gleaners  and 
in  her  efforts.  It  was  hard  to  say  why 
she  felt  so ;  but  she  did.  It  was  not  be- 
cause either  of  them  neglected  or  slighted 
her;  they  did  anything  but  that.  But 
because  they  seemed  to  have  a  tremen- 
dous common  interest  that  they  made  no 
sign  of  wishing  to  share  with  her. 
[133] 


The  Gleaners 


At  length  the  star's  engagement  in  the 
city  was  over,  and  she  moved  on.  Juli- 
etta  was  sure  that  Mr.  Sheppard  missed 
the  star  terribly.  In  fact,  he  said  that  he 
did.  And  yet  he  seemed  to  seek  Juli- 
etta ;  never  to  be  satisfied  if  he  did  not 
see  her  every  day.  They  had  as  many 
long  walks  as  his  work  and  the  weather 
would  permit.  They  went  into  town  to 
the  theatre  quite  frequently.  And  he 
paid  Julietta  almost  constant  tribute  of 
flowers  and  sweets  and  books.  Every- 
thing would  have  been  idyllic  had  there 
not  lurked  always  in  Julietta's  conscious- 
ness that  feeling  of  a  something  closest 
of  all  things  to  his  heart,  which  she  was 
never  asked  to  share. 


[134] 


XVI 

THE  JOY  OF  THE   HARVEST 

THEN  came  a  day  when  he  went 
to  her  looking  as  she  had  never 
in  all  her  life  seen  any  one — 
least  of  all  a  man — look.  He  seemed 
almost  like  a  man  in  a  fever  delirium. 
Dull  red  flamed  in  his  cheeks ;  his  eyes 
glittered  with  a  strange  brightness.  He 
was  intensely  excited,  strung  almost  to 
snapping  tension.  An  hour  ago  he  had 
rewritten,  for  what  would  be  the  last  time 
until  rehearsals  began,  perhaps,  the  clos- 
ing scene  of  his  play.  The  typist  would 
be  done  with  it  to-morrow. 

"And  then?"  asked  Julietta,  her  heart 
beating  heavy  with  dread  of  separation. 

"Then  I'll  take  it  to  New  York.    At 
first  I  thought  of  sending  it,  and  trying 
[135] 


The  Gleaners 


to  wait,  here,  until  I  heard.  But  I  see 
now  how  impossible  that  is.  So  I'll  go 
to-morrow  afternoon." 

"  To-morrow  ?  " 

"Yes — I'm  crazy  !  I  couldn't  stay  be- 
hind it — not  an  hour,  I  don't  believe. 
You  don't  know — yet — how  fully  my 
heart  is  in  that  play.  But  when  you  see 
it,  you  will  know.  It  is  the  heart  of  me, 
and  the  soul  of  me.  I  can't  send  it  to 
make  its  way  alone." 

She  could  not  command  herself  to  ask 
anything  further  just  then.  What  did 
anything  further  matter  ?  He  was  going ; 
and  in  no  human  likelihood  would  he 
ever  come  back.  The  glory-days  were 
done.  And  he  so  eager  to  go !  Fool 
that  she  had  been,  to  think  that  she  was 
anything  but  a  makeshift  of  companion- 
ship during  this  self-imposed  exile  of  his  ! 

She  struggled  as  it  seemed  to  her  she 


The   *J  oy  of  t he  Harvest 

had  never  struggled  before  to  keep  back 
her  tears  ;  but  they  would  not  wait.  She 
turned  her  head  away.  He  did  not  seem 
to  notice.  All  his  thought  was  running 
ahead ;  he  had  none,  it  seemed,  for  retro- 
spect, for  remembrance. 

They  walked  on  in  silence  for  some 
time.  It  was  he  who  spoke  first. 

"  You've  never  seen  such  mad  im- 
patience— have  you  ?  You  don't  under- 
stand it  1 " 

"  I — don't  believe  I  do,"  she  faltered. 

"  But  you  will — some  day  1 " 

"  Will  I  ?  " 

"Well,  I  hope  you  will.  I  hope  that 
when  you  see  the  play,  you'll  realize  why 
I'm  so  excited  ;  why  I  can  hardly  hope  to 
sleep  or  eat  until  I've  seen  how  it  appeals 
to  some  one  else." 

Yet  how  little   eagerness   he   had  to 
know  how  it  would  appeal  to  her ! 
[137] 


The   G  leafier s 

He  had  talked  to  her,  infrequently — 
and  in  her  presence,  to  the  star — about 
the  ways  and  means  of  play-producing. 
So  she  had  some  vague  ideas  of  the 
time  that  must  elapse  before  even  the 
most  favoured  playwright  could  hope 
to  know  the  public's  judgment  on  his 
labours. 

"  I  suppose,"  she  hazarded,  "  you 
haven't  the  least  idea  when  it  will  come 
—here." 

He  laughed  heartily.  "I  wish  I  had 
the  least  idea  when  it  would  get  any- 
where," he  said.  "  But  of  course,  I 
hope  that  if  it  opens  in  New  York — after 
a  few  '  road '  performances,  you  know — it 
will  stay  there  for  a  long,  long,  long,  long 
while ;  not  too  long — because  4  the  road,' 
as  we  call  all  the  country  that  is  not  New 
York,  makes  us  bigger  money,  if  we 
have  a  real  success ;  but  long  enough  so 


The  Joy  of  the  Harvest 

that  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  New  York 
likes  us." 

"I  thought,"  ventured  Julietta,  "that 
what  you  cared  most  about,  with  this 
play,  was  whether  it  would  do  good." 

"That's  what  I  do  care  most  about. 
But  one  of  the  few  ways  I  can  tell  how 
much  good  it  may  be  doing  is  by  the 
statements  I  get  of  how  many  people 
have  paid  their  money  to  see  it — which 
same  blessedly  few  theatre-goers  would 
do  if  they  had  any  suspicion  of  my  real 
object.  If  they  pay  and  keep  paying,  it 
will  be  because  they  have  a  good  time  at 
our  play,  and  have  not  been  bored  by  any 
too-obvious  good  counsel.  I  told  you 
that  a  dramatist  was  not  only  a  mere 
sower  of  seed,  but  that  he  must  even  do 
his  sowing  craftily.  We  may  throw  the 
first  handful  in  the  sign  of  the  cross,  as 
Millet's  Normandy  peasants  did,  with  a 
[139] 


'The  Gleaners 

prayer  to  God  for  the  harvest.  But 
w;/like  them,  the  harvest  we  may  not 
hope  to  see.  That  joy  is  yours — yours, 
and  some  mothers'  joy." 

A  little  sob  escaped  Julietta,  struggling 
successfully  past  the  lock  she  had  tried  to 
set  upon  her  heart's  bitterness. 

He  heard  it,  and  stopped — they  were 
walking  briskly  along  the  Shore  Road 
beyond  the  confines  of  their  village. 

"  You're  not  discouraged  ?  "  he  cried, 
turning  so  he  could  face  her,  and  laying 
his  hand  appealingly  on  her  arm. 

"I  try  not  to  be,"  she  murmured. 
"  But — but  sometimes  it  seems  to  me  to 
be  a — a  pretty  scraggly  kind  of  harvest. 
I — I  don't  know  how  long  my  patience 
will  last — when  you're  gone — and  I  have 
no  one  to  keep  me  encouraged.  I'm  a 
poor,  weak,  wobbly  '  farmer  of  ideals,' 
and  I  feel  terribly — ashamed." 

[HO] 


T/ie  yoy  of  the  Harvest 


He  did  not  answer  immediately  ;  when 
he  did,  his  voice  had  a  quality  in  it 
sweeter  than  anything  Julietta  had  ever 
heard. 

"  Remember,  dear,  how  Millet  felt 
when  he  was  painting  The  Gleaners  ;  and 
try  to  think  what  it  would  have  been,  not 
only  to  all  the  world,  but  to  zis,  if  he 
hadn't  gone  on."  ' 

Julietta's  tears  flowed,  unchecked,  and 
her  mouth  trembled  so  that  she  could 
frame  no  reply.  He  drew  her  hand 
through  his  arm  and  they  walked  on, 
slowly  —  both  heads  bent,  and  his  right 
hand  still  covering  hers  where  he  held  it 
on  his  left  arm. 

"And  —  and  when  one  harvest  fails, 
the  good  husbandman  does  not  give  up," 
he  continued  ;  "he  bides  till  another 
seed-time  and  sows  again." 

"  But  I'm  no  sower,"  she  reminded. 
[Mi] 


T/ie   Gleaners 

"  I  couldn't  sow  this  seed,  even.  You 
and  your  sweet  friend  had  to  do  it  for 
me." 

"  Well  1  don't  we  stand  ready  to  do  it 
again  for  you,  whenever  you  need  us  ?  " 

Julietta  shook  her  head. 

"  You'll  soon  forget  me,  and  my  little 
garden  patch,  when  you're  sowing  your 
great  fields  for  harvest,"  she  faltered. 

John  Sheppard  looked  at  her  in  amaze- 
ment too  great  for  words.  Was  it  possi- 
ble she  thought  such  a  thing?  How 
could  she  not  know  1  He  had  felt  so  sure 
that  she  understood  his  love.  What 
could  he  say  about  it  that  would  speak 
for  it  as  his  actions  had !  He  couldn't 
go  away  and  leave  her  in  any  doubt. 

And  yet !  Must  he  forego  that 

dream  he  had  cherished  so  long  and  so 
jealously — that  delicious  dream  in  which 
he,  like  other  men  who  sowed  seed 


The  jfoy  of  the  Harvest 

in  the  written  word,  had  seen  "  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,"  and  in  which 
a  Voice  had  said :  "  Write :  for  these 
words  are  true  and  faithful !  " 

Gripping  the  hand  he  held  so  hard  that 
it  almost  hurt,  he  bent  his  head  lower 
and  murmured  : 

"  Look  at  me — dear." 

Julietta  tried  to  obey :  she  lifted  her 
face,  which  was  burning  with  blushes ; 
but  she  could  see  him  only  through  the 
blur  of  her  tears. 

"  Tell  me  you  don't  believe — what  you 
just  said — about  me  forgetting." 

Her  mouth  quivered ;  words  would  not 
come. 

No  one  was  in  sight  on  the  Shore  Road. 
He  drew  her  to  him  and  kissed  her  eyes 
where  the  tears  shone — tears  for  his  go- 
ing. 

Then  an  automobile  whirled  into  view. 
[143] 


The  Gleaners 

"  Say  you  don't  believe  it,"  he  pleaded. 

The  auto  flew  by  in  a  cloud  of  dust. 

"  I  don't  believe  that — you'll  forget," 
she  said.  And  lifted  to  him,  full  of  trust, 
her  eyes — that  he  had  kissed. 


[144] 


XVII 
WHAT  THE  PLAY  WAS  ABOUT 

IT  seemed  to  Juliette  that  she  counted 
time,  after  John  Sheppard  left,  not 
by  figures  on  the  dial,  nor  yet   by 
heart-throbs,  but  by  the  coming  of  the 
mails. 

He  kept  her  fully  posted  on  every  de- 
tail of  the  play's  progress. 

"  About  all  I  can  write  you  in  return," 
she  said,  "  is  how  my  garden  grows — my 
garden  of  ideals  that  you  planted  for 
me." 

"  That,  and  how  you  are,  is  about  all 
that  any  one  could  write  me  that  would 
be  of  intense  interest  to  me  just  now,"  he 
answered. 

The  play  had  been  instantly  accepted. 
[H5] 


The   Gleaners 


"  I  took  it  in  to  the  office  of  the  man- 
ager I  preferred  to  any  other,"  he  wrote 
her  on  his  third  day  in  New  York.  "  He 
seemed  pleased  to  see  me;  asked  me 
where  I  had  been.  '  Writing  a  play,'  I  told 
him.  ' Good  ! '  he  said.  '  Get  it  done? ' 
I  produced  it  from  my  pocket — like  a 
book  agent.  '  What's  it  about  ? '  he 
asked,  'nibbling'  at  the  pages.  I  gave 
him  the  gist  of  it,  briefly.  He  smiled 
quizzically.  '  Think  you  can  get  away  with 
it  ? '  he  queried.  '  That's  up  to  you  to 
decide,'  I  answered.  '  I'll  read  it  to-night,' 
he  promised.  And  I  got  out — quickly  I 
— so  that  the  day's  work  might  be  got 
through  with  before  evening.  ...  In 
the  small  hours  he  called  me  at  The 
Players.  '  I'll  have  your  contract  ready 
at  eleven  o'clock  to-morrow,'  he  'phoned. 
That  was  all — all  that  was  necessary. 
When  I  saw  him  this  morning  he  said  : 
'  Where  have  you  been,  Sheppard  ? '  I 
knew  what  he  meant,  but  pretended  not 
to.  '  At  The  Players,'  I  answered, 
stupidly.  He  cussed  me  with  a  look. 
'  I  mean,  where  did  you  write  your  play  ? ' 
I  told  him.  '  Is  this  kind  of  thing  in  the 
atmosphere  there  ? '  he  asked,  tapping  the 

[146] 


What  the  Play  was  About 

manuscript.  '  Not  in  the  atmosphere  of 
any  place,'  I  replied  ;  '  I  worked  there  for 
some  time  without  better  results  than  if  I 
had  stayed  on  Broadway.'  He  gave  me 
a  long,  searching  look  out  of  those  keen 
eyes  of  his — and  said  nothing,  for  a 
moment.  Then  he  handed  me  the  con- 
tract to  read.  'They  do  happen  yet,'  he 
muttered — as  if  to  himself  more  than  to 
me.  '  What  ? '  I  asked.  '  Miracles  1 '  he 
grunted.  '  Yes ! '  I  said,  fervently ;  '  they 
do ! '  .  .  .  We  discussed  the  cast  even 
before  I  had  taken  the  contract  to  my 
lawyer  for  his  approval — which  isn't  at 
all  necessary,  but  is  the  only  thing  I  ever 
do  that  makes  me  feel  businesslike." 


In  other  matters  than  its  acceptance 
the  play  went  forward  speedily ;  the  idea 
being  to  get  it  on  in  New  York  before 
the  end  of  January,  so  that  if  it  succeeded, 
it  might  have  a  good  long  run  there  be- 
fore the  hot  weather. 

So  rehearsals  were  soon  in  progress. 
These  meant  long  hours  of  hard  work  for 


The  Gleaners 

the  author — much  rewriting  and  pruning 
and  enlarging.  His  daily  letters  to  Julietta 
were  written  in  such  scraps  of  time  as  he 
could  snatch  from  his  work. 

In  them  he  began  to  plan  definitely  for 
her  coming  on.  They  were  to  play  three 
weeks  of  trial  performances :  Baltimore, 
Washington,  and  a  week  of  one-night 
stands.  Then,  on  the  very  last  night  of 
January,  they  were  to  open  in  New 
York. 

"  My  mother  will  be  here,"  he  wrote, 
"  and  my  married  sister — and  likewise,  it 
seems,  a  number  of  my  '  cousins  and  my 
aunts.'  Mother  is  writing  you,  asking 
you  to  be  her  guest  at  the  hotel.  I  want 
to  meet  you  at  the  train,  so  we  must  try 
to  find  one  that  will  bring  you  in  here 
after  I  am  back  from  the  road,  on  Sunday, 
and  before  they  have  me  snared  for  the 

Governor's  interminable  dress  rehearsal." 
[148] 


What  the  Play  was  About 

It  all  seemed  like  a  dream  to  Julietta, 
as  she  read  his  letters  and  even  as  she 
went  about  her  preparations.  She  had 
been  in  New  York  for  a  day  or  two  at  a 
time  on  several  occasions  when  she  went 
to  boarding-school.  But  that  she  should 
be  going  there  to  stay  ten  days  or  a  fort- 
night and  to  attend,  as  a  guest  of  the 
dramatist,  the  first  night  of  a  play ! 

He  telegraphed  her  about  the  play's 
warm  reception  on  the  road.  But  he  sent 
her  no  newspapers.  "I  want  you,"  he 
wrote,  "  to  bring  to  the  hearing  a  mind 
quite  free  from  preconceptions.  I  haven't 
told  mother,  either,  what  my  play  is 
about." 

From  the  moment  of  her  arrival,  Juli- 
etta was  caught  up  into  the  whirl  of 
anxiety  and  nervousness  that  precedes  a 
metropolitan  opening.  They  were  quite 
on  the  outside,  in  a  way — she  and  John 


The  Gleaners 

Sheppard's  mother  and  sister — but  no 
one  was  more  excited.  If  they  had  had 
anything  to  do,  any  responsibility,  the 
demand  on  them  would  have  helped  to 
steady  them.  But  they  could  only  wait 
And  when  they  went  out,  and  tried  to 
divert  themselves,  all  they  could  think — 
as  they  laughingly  confessed  to  one 
another — was,  as  they  scanned  the  people 
they  passed  :  Will  he  come,  I  wonder  1 
And  will  she  like  it?  They  saw  all 
New  York  in  relation  only  to  "The 
Gleaners." 

At  length  the  evening  came.  Mrs. 
Sheppard  and  her  party  were  to  have  a 
box,  and  to  wear  their  best,  of  course. 

"  Don't  dress  up  too  much — or,  if  you 
do,  wear  a  plain,  dark  cloak,  please," 
John  Sheppard  whispered  to  Julierta.  "  I 
have — other  plans  for  you." 

Wonderingly,  she  obeyed — wearing 
C'50] 


What  the  P lay  was  About 

her  ulster  instead  of  the  pretty  evening 
wrap  she  had  brought. 

When  they  reached  the  theatre,  she 
understood.  He  saw  them  all  seated  in 
their  box,  then  excused  himself. 

"  I'm  going  back  for  just  a  minute,  to 
wish  everybody  luck,"  he  said.  "And 
when  I  return — if  Miss  Grier  doesn't 
mind,  I'd  like  her  to  watch  the  play  from 
the  balcony." 

No  one  seemed  surprised ;  he  had 
evidently  explained  his  purpose  to  his 
mother  and  sister.  And,  two  minutes 
before  the  curtain  was  rung  up,  he  came 
and  got  Julietta.  Their  seats  were  ob- 
scure ones  wherein  no  one  would  think 
of  looking  for  the  author,  but  from  which 
the  view  was  excellent.  And  they  could 
listen,  unnoticed,  to  the  comments  all 
about  them. 

In     her     tense     excitement,    Julietta 


The  Gleaners 


gripped  the  arm  of  her  seat  as  if  for 
support.  Under  cover  of  the  friendly 
dusk  when  the  curtain  was  up  and  the 
house  was  dark,  John  Sheppard's  hand 
covered  hers,  clinging  close. 

Almost  immediately,  Julietta  realized 
what  the  play  was.  She  had  supposed 
him  joking  when  he  said  he  ought  to 
write  about  her. 

This  girl  he  had  built  his  play  about 
was  not  Julietta,  of  course — and  yet  she 
was !  Nothing  that  she  did  was  as 
Julietta  had  done — and  yet,  everything 
was  there  as  they  had  talked  about  it, 
about  the  girl  who  put  new  magic  into 
stale  lives  because,  instead  of  sowing 
broadcast,  as  nearly  everybody  wants  to 
do,  she  was  willing  to  coax  along  the 
harvest.  It  was  real  comedy :  people 
laughed  until  they  cried  ;  and  when  they 
cried,  they  could  pretend  (if  they  wanted 


W^hat  the  Play  was  About 

to)  that  it  was  because  they  had  laughed 
so  hard.  Julietta  could  pretend  this,  too, 
if  she  cared  to  pretend — and  she  did,  for 
the  sake  of  the  people  who  could  see. 
But  John  Sheppard  knew  1 

After  the  third  act  there  was  an  ova- 
tion, not  the  usual  noisy  first-night  kind 
that  means  nothing  but  the  good-will  of 
friends,  but  a  demonstration  charged  with 
real  feeling,  such  as  to  make  gratefully 
glad  the  hearts  of  those  who  cared  so 
very,  very  much  how  the  public  took  this 
play. 

To  the  calls  for  "  Author !  Author !  " 
Sheppard  did  not  respond.  When  they 
persisted,  the  producer  appeared,  saying 
that  Mr.  Sheppard  could  not  be  found ; 
and  that,  if  he  could  be  found,  un- 
doubtedly he  would  not  be  able  to  say 
what  happiness  their  kind  reception  gave 
him. 

['53] 


The  Gleaners 

"  I  think  I  know  just  how  you  feel,"  the 
producer  went  on.  "  You  feel  as  I  did 
when  I  read  the  play.  Sitting  alone,  at 
home,  after  a  hard  day's  work,  I  went  at 
the  manuscript  as — well,  as  some  of  you 
men  go  back  to  the  office  at  night  to 
have  another  round  at  the  things  that  are 
never  done.  And  before  I  knew  it,  I  was 
laughing  until  I  cried  and  crying  until 
I  laughed,  and — well,  as  I  said,  I 
think  I  know  how  you  feel.  I  wish  you 
might  know  as  well  how  we  feel  whom 
you  have  so  greatly  encouraged." 

Then  the  lights  went  down,  and  the 
curtain  went  up,  and  the  play  proceeded 
to  its  close — the  close  that  left  each 
auditor  smiling  mistily,  and  thoughtful 
each  of  his  or  her  own  Mrs.  Mears, 
determined  each  to  be  a  patient  gardener 
of  ideals,  no  matter  in  how  small  a  patch 
of  ground. 

[154] 


W^hat  the  P lay  was  About 

"  Will  Do  More  Good  Than  All  the 
Philippics  Ever  Written  Against  '  The 
Other  Fellow:  " 

Thus  ran  the  verdict 

"  It's  your  play,  really.  I  feel  ashamed 
to  have  my  name  attached  to  all  this 
credit,"  John  Sheppard  declared  to  Juli- 
etta  when  he  laid  down,  next  afternoon, 
the  last  of  the  glowing  tributes  the  day's 
press  had  paid  "  The  Gleaners." 

"  You  needn't  let  that  mar  your  happi- 
ness," Julietta  reminded  him,  blushing 
prettily.  "  Think  how  soon  it  will  be  my 
name,  too." 


END 


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